


Like Father, Like Daughter

by ADdude



Category: Star vs. The Forces Of Evil
Genre: AU, F/M, Hekamom, Jelly Star, Learning to be a father, Marcapoo oc kid, Marco is a father, Other, Post-Episode: s02e31 Running With Scissors, parental worry
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-03-19
Updated: 2019-04-22
Packaged: 2019-11-24 20:32:08
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 37,876
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18169589
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ADdude/pseuds/ADdude
Summary: After spending 16 years in another dimension Marco is finding it a little hard to readjust to his life back on Earth. Then a few days later Hekapoo shows up at his doorstep with a daughter, their daughter! Needless to say, he's going to have a lot more stuff to get used to. Post from my FF.net account





	1. Surprise

**Author's Note:**

> I don't own Star vs or any elements.  
> This is being reposted from my fanfic.net account.

Marco was finding it a bit hard to readjust to his old life. The smallest things seemed to get odd reactions. Living in forest filled with monster eager to gobble him up kept him on alert all the time even in his sleep. So he would often wake up even when he heard his own father walking down the hall to just to use the bathroom late at night.

He had trouble waking up in the morning, he was used to sleeping in as late as he wanted to or could.Waking up at a set time every day was difficult.

He wasn’t having any luck at school, he was finding it a little hard to focus on subjects. He often found himself thinking back about his adventures. Also he had a hard time remembering stuff that they had covered.

His relationships changed a little too. He hadn’t seen any of these people for over a decade, he remembered them but it felt odd to be around them all of a sudden again. Ferguson and Alfonso were nice enough to and tried to give him all the space he needed. They were trying to readjust with him slowly, having lunch together talking about anything. They would listened on as he told them about his adventures.

Janna, was a little annoyed. She loved getting a reaction from Marco but now found it hard to get a reaction out of him. If she stole anything from him he didn’t really care. If she hid a snake in his locker he would note it was not venomous and carefully take the snake somewhere in the wild were it would live peacefully. She should have realized something was going to change when he asked for his password from her.

Miss Skullnick was noticeably worried about his change of attitude. She asked him if anything was wrong and that if he needed someone to talk to she was always there for him. He admitted that something had changed but he didn’t feel up for talking. He did appreciate her concern, if anyone could understand having your life changed so suddenly it was her. He told her he was fine for the moment but he might one day talk to her. Still she told him her door was always open if he wanted to talk.

Tom even noticed a distinct change him. They would play ping pong and Tom noticed his calm demeanor. He held back a bit and was surprised that Marco was able to do much better in the game. They speak but Tom was surprised to find that Marco seemed to get reassured by the challenge the demon presented. That was throwing him off a bit.

Jackie was a little worried, they hadn’t been on more than one date but it seemed so odd for Marco do be so distant all of a sudden. She was unsure of what it meant for them.

Marco’s sensei sensed a different flame behind Marco, he had changed. His moments seemed a tad forced, like he had been used to fighting in different ways his body wasn’t used to. He still skilled but it seemed off. But he still had the drive to perfect himself. Though he was a tad afraid that he might be thinking of looking for another sensei.

Even Pony head saw some changes in him, she found herself calling Marco instead of Earth Turd. He had this presence, this calm mature aura about him that reminded her of her kingdoms knights and warriors.

Marco’s parents were worried. When Star told them what happened they were shocked and scared but Marco told them he was fine and just wanted to get things back to normal. He seemed very Marco-ish, he helped around the house and was as kind as ever but he seemed a little distant. They found him working out more and just being isolated.

So maybe Marco shouldn’t have been surprised when he woke up Saturday and going down stairs to find everyone waiting for him.

His teacher, his friends, his sensei, his family, and whatever you want to classify Tom as were sitting in the living room waiting for him.

“Marco.” Raphael spoke in a calm voice. “We were hoping to talk.”

“Ah… Okay. Is something the matter?”Marco looked around, his instincts almost flinching as he felt that he might need to bolt. He glanced at the window realizing that was probably the easiest escape route.

Angie smiled at her son, “Marco, we’re all a little worried about you. We know a lot has happened to you and…”

“And what?” Marco questioned.

“We just want you to talk about it.” Star spoke up, speaking everyone thoughts.

“I-I- I don’t feel like talking.”

Skullnick spoke up, “Marco, please, we’re trying to understand.”

“I do appreciate that, I really do. I get that you’re worrying about me. The thing is that you just can’t.”

“Marco,” Star looked at him. “I told them, I told them that you lived 16 years in another dimension. “

Jackie took a turn talking, “Maybe it would help if you talk to us about it. Help us understand a little… you’ve just been so distant lately.”

Marco paused for a moment and looked at everyone, “I’m sorry, I’m sorry I’ve been distant. I’m not doing it on purpose, I’m just having a bit of a hard time readjusting. It’s after everything that I’ve seen and done its hard to see how I used to fit in here-“

Someone knocked on the door.

They all turned to the door before the knocking continued.

Raphael got up and answered the door intending to ask whoever was knocking to leave.

He opened the door, “Hello, I’m sorry but we are having-“

He paused when he realized there was a swirling portal in front the door and a pale hand coming from it. Quickly enough a pale young woman with long red hair, a pair of yellow horns and yellow dress stepped out of the portal. It vanished once she stepped out.

“Yeah, sorry to bother but does Marco live here?”

“Hekapoo?” Marco proclaimed.

“Hekapoo!” Star, Tom and Pony Head proclaimed, the last two seem rather nervous by her presence. The pulled back a little and the others followed suit.

“Hey Marco!” Hekapoo quickly turned attention to Marco.

“Oh, this is the girl you were chasing for 16 years?”Angie asked not accusing anything just simply asking.

“Yeah, she is. She’s the ruler of her dimension and the maker of the dimensional scissors. She’s also my friend.” Marco admitted.

“Hello.” Raphael greeted her friendly.

“Nice to meet you.” Angie quickly added.

“Come in.” Marco’s parent invited her in and made her a cup of tea. Marco quickly introduced the pair as his parents. The rest of the groups sat together and was almost forgotten as the focus quickly turned to Hekapoo.

“Hekapoo, what are you doing here?” Marco questioned. “You’re not one to visit people.”

“Yeah, well, what can I say.” Hekapoo shrugged. “I had something to tell you.”

“Something to tell me?” Marco raised an eyebrow as fear crept into his very being. “Did something happen to Nacho!”

“No! No!” She held out her hand. “Nacho is fine.”

“Nacho?” Jackie whispered to Star.

“Oh, a dragon cycle that Marco tamed. It’s really dope. Super cute too.”

“So what did you want to tell me? Are the dimensional scissors defective or something?”

“First off, no. My scissors are always top grade. If you have trouble with dimensional scissors they are counterfeits.” Hekapoo clicked her tongue as she recalled some of the counterfeits she’d encountered before. “Who would even make a dimensional chainsaw? Unstable piece of junk that would of course get jammed.”

“So what bring you here then?” Marco took a step closer to her.

Hekapoo took amoment trying to pick her words right, finally she sighed, “You know, I planned on just telling you this alone but maybe it’s for the best that your parents are here.”

The Diazes looked on confused at what she would have to tell them all.

Suddenly a rift formed in the middle the room, a swirling orange vortex opened wide before them.

The rest of the room all tumbled backwards trying to get away from the portal.

A roar ripped through the portal along with the sound of wings flapping.

From out the portal shot out a girl on a dragon cycle.

The dragon cycle was Marco’s dragon cycle, she seemed to be healthy and happy to see her old friend even though he was looking younger now.

The Diazes looked on at the girl stunned. She was a girl of about 14 but she looked an awful lot like Angie when she was younger. Her hair was long and full, held together by a torn like scrunchy. Her hair looked like Hekapoo’s own, similar shade of red though a bit darker and a bit more brown. Her eyes were bright amber glimmered as she looked around her. She wore a pair of brown boots, a pair of black jeans, a yellow shirt under a red hoodie sweater. She had a pair of shoulder spikes on the hoodie. She had a pair of yellow horns like Hekapoo sticking out of her hair. She smirked, a small little fang poking out as she did.

“I really need to time these things better. I always forget about the time difference between dimensions.” Hekapoo took a deep breath, “Marco, we have a daughter.”

“WHAT?!” Everyone yelled at once.

“Sup, pops!” The young girl greeted.

“WHAT?!” Marco repeated right before he fainted.

This was probably going to take a lot more time to get used to than anything else.

As the world faded black for Marco he could barely make out Pony Head say, “Dang, wouldn’t have thought Earth Turd would have had it in him. Like, seriously.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Author’s Notes: First off this idea came from a fan comic done by morningmark on tumblr. The basic design of the character is based on the fan comic. I’m planning on making her look a bit different as the story goes on, give her different outfit and make her more separate from her parents. I had an idea and planned for this chapter to be longer but then I realized something…. I didn’t have a name in mind for her. So, yeah, I’ll work on that if you have any suggestions let me know and when I got a name we will continue. Let me know what you think in a review and if you have any ideas for the name. Then I’ll continue the story about Marco being a teenaged father to a teenaged daughter. Yeah, things are going to get a little wild, things are going to get a little weird.
> 
> Additional Notes: I am going to post the notes as were for the most part. So some will be out of date or things that don't make sense without the proper context. I'll try to edit that out where I can but for previous betas will be much the same.


	2. Meet the Parents

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Marco gets to know his daughter.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Disclaimer: I don’t own Star Vs the Forces of Evil or any of its elements.  
> Special Thanks to my beta IdeaGenerator

Chapter 02: Meet the Parents

 

Marco’s mind felt sluggish as he opened his eyes. He groaned as he put a hand to his head, his fingers brushing against a sore-feeling bump. Trying to get up and wincing at the pain, he noticed he was laying on the couch in the living room from the sensation of the cushions underneath him. All he could really see at the moment were unclear blobs of color, but he could tell that the biggest ones to him had to be his parents, no mistake about it. Sitting up, he yawned and stretched his arms, smacking his lips.

“Hey Mom, hey Dad. You wouldn’t believe what just happened. I just had the weirdest dream...”

“That wasn’t a dream,” a familiar female voice, one that was just in his dream, said. “You just fainted.”

Marco blinked in surprise and confusion as his eyes finally began to make out the concerned faces of his friends, his family, and a certain red haired girl. Actually, make that two red haired girls. An awkward silence fell over him as the events of his ‘dream’ started to rush back to him, especially what Hekapoo came to tell him.

“…So, um, how long was I out?” Marco said with a wince, trying to cut the tension in the room.

“Long enough for this tea to go cold.” 

Hekapoo’s-his-daughter snapped her fingers and a small ball of fire formed in her palm. She moved the flame closer to the tea cup, heating the cup up until it started to boil, and handed it to her mother.

“Ah, thanks sweetie.” Hekapoo smiled before taking a sip of the now warm tea.

A small distance away, Jackie, standing with the others, scratched the back of her head. She didn’t know what to think or feel at the moment, especially with how Marco was involved with the whole situation. “Uh, should we even be here right now? This seems way too personal. Maybe we should lea-Mmmfph”

She grasped at the pair of hands covering her mouth, but Janna shook her head slowly, a reignited fire in her eyes and a large smile creeping across her face. “No, this is too juicy to leave alone.”

Thankfully, before the situation could get any more stranger than it already was, Alfonso and Ferguson arrived with handfuls of snacks from the kitchen and started passing them out.

“Janna, we got your popcorn, Sensei, I got you an apple, and Miss Skullnick, Ferguson found you some chips.” 

“Really? An apple?” Janna questioned, letting go of the poor skater’s mouth and popping some corn into her mouth.

“I can’t have too much. Mom is making meatloaf tonight,” Sensei told her. 

“Keep quiet, I don’t want to miss anything,” Skullnick said, shushing them. “As the one that’s going to have to file a report on this for the district and not leave any detail out, I demand silence!”

Pony Head grumbled to herself, already getting her phone out. “I have got to text Chelsey about this. She’s gonna flip when she hears this!”

Tom, however, put his hand over her phone. “Uh, that may not be such a good idea Pony Head. Chelsey is a gossip and, if word of this gets out, Hekapoo will track it down. To you.” He silently tilted his head towards Hekapoo, who was still talking with Marco and thankfully wasn’t paying attention to the others’ conversations. “You probably should not try to get her attention that way, especially with those…’things’ you found.”

“…Ah…Maybe Chelsey doesn’t need to know about this.”

Jackie sighed, tired of being kept in the dark of who this stranger was and why it would be such a bad idea to tick her off. “Okay, so just who is she?”

Pony Head and Tom just stared at her as if they couldn’t believe what they were hearing.

“Seriously? Humans don’t know who Hekapoo is?” Pony Head said, an incredulous look on her face.

Getting a clueless shake of the head and a shrug from Jackie, Tom began to explain. “Hekapoo is the ruler of her own entire dimension. She’s the creator of all dimensional scissors and is one of the members of Magic High Commission.”

“She’s one of biggest players in all the dimensions!” Pony Head said. “She’s got enough power backing her that you really don’t want to tick her off!”

“Is that why Star’s been stuck on buffering the past few minutes?” Jackie asked, pointing towards the princess. 

Star’s usual heart marks on her cheeks had changed into two spinning rainbow balls, and Star herself just remained motionless, only staring off into the space before her with what appeared to be a death grip on her wand. Her right eye appeared to be twitching, a contrast to the rest of the blank expression on her face.

“Huh?” Ferguson noted. “Was that me, or did Star’s wand just glow green for a moment?”

Janna shushed him before he could say anything else. “Quiet! I can’t hear anything. And it looks like things just got interesting.”

Marco was moving his mouth, trying to get words out, but they simply weren’t coming out. He looked at Hekapoo and then at the girl next to her. He didn’t think Hekapoo was lying to him. She would trick and tease him back during their game of chase, but this wasn’t something she’d lie about. This wasn’t anything any decent person would ever lie about. 

Marco looked at the girl once more. He was surprised just how much of his mother he could see in her. 

He didn’t know why he liked that so much. 

Marco had never really given much thought about what a kid of his would look like, but he never thought that they would have any traits from his own parents. Then again, as he studied her-his daughter, he reminded himself-for a moment, small yet familiar traits started to become apparent. Her bangs reminded him of his own, and her red hoodie looked almost exactly like the pairs he had upstairs. 

She had a certain look in her eyes, a look he saw every time he looked in a mirror. It was something he just couldn’t describe but something too familiar to not be from himself. 

Emotions he couldn’t understand, ones he had never felt before, started boiling up in him. Yet, at the same time, his entire body just felt numb and unresponsive.

“Hekapoo…” Marco said, unsure of what to say next, “How?”

“How what? I’m not a mind reader you know,” Hekapoo said with a smirk on her face. Her look faltered as she noticed Marco glance towards the elephant in the room currently feeding Nachos a few apples from the fruit bowl the older Diazes brought with the tea, then her expression set back in place and she turned towards her daughter. “Oh, uh, sweetie, why don’t you talk with the rest of the guests and make some friends? The adults need to talk right now.”

“Okay mom!” With that, she got up and beckoned Nachos to follow her to the other side of the room, where everyone were trying their best to get their act back together. 

With that taken care of, Hekapoo turned back to the Diazes and put her finger on her chin. “Hm, where were we? Oh, right. ‘How?’ Well, Marco, you already know the answer to that. You were there when it happened,” Hekapoo answered with a wry expression. “The night we had together right before you blew out my flame.”

“That’s not what I meant!”

“Wait!” Angie spoke up, a delayed yet sudden realization appearing in her and Rafael’s eyes. “You two-“

Marco did not want to have that conversation with his parents right now. “I was thirty at the time!”

He winced at the pair of soul-piercing gazes he felt upon him. “We’ll talk about this later, Marco Ubaldo Diaz.”

Never had he felt so much dread during the harrowing adventures he had while chasing Hekapoo as he did right now. This was not something he wanted to deal with today. “I said I was thirty, okay?!?”

“Well, you were in your twenties the first time,” Hekapoo mumbled.

“Not helping!” Marco gulped as the intensity of his parents’ glares increased tenfold. “How could you not tell me we had a daughter until she was in her teens?”

“Oh, that.” For the first time he could remember, Hekapoo actually looked a little bit sheepish. “Well, it wasn’t exactly intentional on my part. We know I like messing with you sometimes-well, okay, a lot-but not about anything like this. A few days after you left, I started to feel sick, but it wasn’t like I thought I was pregnant at the time.”

“Because you’re a-“

“Yup.”

“And it shouldn’t be possible for-“

“Exactly.”

“Then how did you find out you were pregnant?”

“I’m getting to that. So, after not getting any better for a while, I decided to go to a doctor to see what was wrong with me. But the moment I left my dimension, it actually got worse.”

“But how? I mean, we’re not even the same species.”

“Yeah, well, the thing about cross breeding is that if both species are structurally similar enough, it can happen. But the thing is, our species aren’t even that compatible. In this case, it was a complete fluke. The doctors figured that, somehow, we had met all of the impossible conditions for us to have a child.”

“...Oh.” Nearly everyone else in the room could almost hear the gears in Marco’s head turn at this. “So, what happened? Why didn’t you tell me right away?”

“Well, when I got to the hospital, I just about went into labor. The doctors were just as confused as I was. It just didn’t make any sense to anyone. I mean, I was already pregnant even though it had only been days after you left. Eventually, I gave birth and the doctors ran some tests to figure out what the deal was in the first place.” Here, she paused, as if trying to find the right words. Her characteristic smirk had completely disappeared in favor of a frown.

“According to what they could piece together, because she was conceived in the Afflicted Forest, where things are a bit more wonky time-wise, and because of the differences between our home dimensions’ timelines, time works...differently for her. I had been in the hospital for a few days trying to figure out what to do before I took her home, and I had planned on telling you sooner, but then some...stuff happened.”

“Stuff?”

“She grew, like, really fast. She’s really only about a month old in relative time.”

“A month?!” Marco was shocked. “She’s only a month old?” he asked, looking in the direction of the girl who looked older than she had any right to be. She was trying to make small talk with the rest of the guests who looked strangely uncomfortable, which was to be expected with the given surrealism of the current situation. It was a feeling that Marco was all too familiar with at the moment.

“Yes, she is, and it only slows down when she leaves my dimension. The doctors think something in her system must have been triggered by the time dilation when we got back to my dimension. She ages rapidly in my dimension...” Hekapoo said quietly. The whole room seemed to become filled with silence as she just looked at her tea cup with a blank stare.

“She just...grew up so fast. I didn’t even notice it for the first few days. Then, she was just getting so big and picking up things so fast and growing so much and-” Hekapoo sniffed-actually sniffed-as tears were welling up in her eyes. She moved to hide them, but it was clear that she was wracked with sadness at the moment.

Marco saw something in her eyes, something he never thought he would see from her. He saw fear, real fear, and despair. Marco ran the numbers in his head. If his daughter was already about fourteen years old in body but only about a month old, about thirty days, it would mean that for every day she lived, she would age about five months. 

Marco could understand where her fear came from. In Hekapoo’s dimension, with how quickly their daughter grew, it was very possible that Hekapoo could watch her grow old and pass away in less than year. This wasn’t some sort of curse of immortality, this was a tragic twist of fate. 

The very idea of losing someone like that was horrible. Even having just learned about his daughter, he felt like someone was crushing his own heart in a vice. 

No wonder she hadn’t told him sooner. She was busy raising a daughter and running a dimension alone, several years worth of child rearing all squeezed into a month. 

“…but, “ Hekapoo said softly, “We found out she ages normally outside my dimension. I know this is a lot to ask of you, but would you be able to take care of her?”

Marco already knew what he wanted to say, but someone else beat him to the punch.

“She can live with us,” Rafael said without missing a beat.

“We would have to move some things around but it shouldn’t be an issue,” Angie added.

“A-are you sure?” Hekapoo asked, surprised at the lack of resistance to her request. 

“Of course!” Rafael smiled broadly before moving across the room to hug the surprised young girl, unintentionally crushing her between his arms. “She’s family, we would do anything to help.”

Angie quickly joined in on hugging the silently gasping girl. “Besides, it gives us a chance to get to know our granddaughter.”

“She takes so much after you,” Rafael told his wife.

“Deary, you can just call me Grandma,” Angie said.

“Call me Abuelo!” 

“Gack!” Their blue-faced granddaughter gasped for breath. “Need air!”

Hekapoo smiled and gave a small, tired chuckle as the two adults released their grips on the poor girl. “I should have figured.”

Marco had a kind heart. He was the kind of person who would help others whenever he could, no matter the cost. He would give even a monster a second chance if they said they wanted to be good. Hekapoo knew that much from the several times he had stopped in the middle his pursuit of her and her clones, just to help people in need. It was, in a way, a trait that she admired. One that she knew she could depend on, especially for this task.

Marco came from a family that opened their home to exchange students from all around the world, it was not hard to see where he got it from. When a reckless princess crashed into their lives, despite the dangers and the craziness she brought to their lives, they loved her like family. They were people with a lot of heart and a lot of love. That they accepted her daughter so easily was something that filled Hekapoo with joy, knowing that she could trust her daughter to their care.

Marco took a deep breath and stepped forwards, looking at the girl his parents had finally let go of. Her-his daughter’s eyes locked with his own and he gulped. What was he supposed to say? 

“Ah, h-hey.” Marco tried to smile through the tension he felt in his face. “So, uh, i-it’s nice to me-meet you. I’m Marco…I’m your dad.” He held out his hand to shake hers and instantly mentally scolded himself for such a stupid idea.

“Hi!” She smiled brightly. “I’m Seraph.”

“Seraph?” Marco’s heart felt warm after hearing that, his smile feeling more natural than before. “T-that’s a nice name.”

Before Marco could say anything else, Seraph jumped over and hugged him. “Nice to meet you too, dad.”

Marco’s arms shook, but they slowly wrapped around her and gave her a hug. She felt warm and soft and smelled like charcoal, and before he realized it he was hugging her tighter.  Marco didn’t understand any of this, but he knew that he wanted to protect her and make sure she was okay. He didn’t know how it was supposed to work, but he was already falling in love with this girl. His girl.

Rafael and Angie smiled at their son. They recognized that same reaction as one they  had a long time ago. Remembering back to when they held their son for the first time and felt those same familial instincts take hold, their eyes teared up with joy.

After a moment, Hekapoo cleared her throat. “I, uh...I guess I should leave you be and let you get settled.” She got up and started to walk towards the door, but it looked more like a dead man’s march. It was clear that this was something she didn’t want to do, to leave her daughter behind, and that every step just tore into her heart even more and more. She tried to keep a straight face, but her true feelings poked through the cracks in her mask.

Marco wanted to say something, to comfort her, but he didn’t know what. He knew she had a lot of work to get back to in her dimension, and with the Magic High Commission and the leak in the universe, she couldn’t stay very long. Not even for her own daughter. Who could truly know what to say in a moment like this?

“Mom, wait!” Seraph said as she reached for her mother’s hand, “Do you really have to leave right now?”

Hekapoo came to a sudden stop, her composure truly breaking down and letting her feelings known to the world. She was rooted in place for a second, struck by indecision, then she turned around and pulled her daughter tightly into her arms. Her shoulders heaved with emotion as her sobs filled the air.

“Mom, is everything okay?”

The sobs slowed as Hekapoo looked up into her daughter’s eyes. Her own were puffy and streaked with tears as a caring smile crossed her face. She wiped her eyes and caressed Seraph’s cheek with her hand. “ Hekapoo punctuated her sentence by kissing Seraph on the cheek.

“Ew! Mom!” Seraph yelled, her cheeks flushing.

Hekapoo mussed up her hair, a chuckle coming from everyone and finally breaking the tension in the room as the young girl protested against the action, though they could all tell she loved it. “I know, I know. I love you sweetie, and I’ll see you soon.” She stepped back and pulled out her dimensional scissors. With a smooth motion, she used them to tear a hole in space before her. 

Half a step into the portal, Hekapoo paused, then turned back to look at the living room, at one boy in particular. “Marco, take care of her.”

Marco gave her a respectful nod, for he had no more words left to say. With that answer, Hekapoo smiled one last time, and she stepped through, the portal closing behind her.

Marco didn’t say anything, but he thought that smile was a sad one, full of unspoken hope and pain. They both knew she didn’t want to be separated from their daughter. But, as the way things were right now, this was the best thing she could do for Seraph. And Marco was determined not to mess this up.

0000

Hekapoo found herself walking back into her castle, which seemed colder and more quiet than she felt it should have been. It had only been a month, but in such a short time, her little girl had become such a huge part of her life. Hekapoo had gotten used to hearing Seraph running through the halls and her screams of delight echoing off the walls. She could remember when Seraph had first said “Mama,” when Seraph took her first steps, when Seraph crafted her first ordinary-not dimensional ones, of course-pair of scissors. 

All of these and many more memories flooded her vision as she looked around her home, nearly everything bringing forth to mind another memory. There were the scorch marks on the floor from when Seraph tried to ride Nachos without her supervision when she was eight. And those were the misshapen pieces of metal from when Seraph was learning how to use the forge, up there on one of her shelves. 

Hekapoo smiled a little, picking up a little metal figurine from the shelf. Seraph had tried her hand at metal artwork a week ago, crafting a statue of her mother. Her face was misshapen, her horns were pointed too closely together, and her legs weren’t that big, but Hekapoo loved it all the same. Turning it over, she took a look at the words Seraph had engraved into the back.

I will always love you mommy.

Her smile shattered as it finally hit her, what she had done. What she had to do. For her daughter’s sake.

It had broken her heart when she learned about Seraph’s condition, but now, she just felt numb to the world.

Hekapoo had only left for a few minutes, but it felt so much longer. Never had the castle felt so empty. And because of Seraph’s condition, her daughter could never come back home.

She cried.

0000

The room fell silent as the portal closed, everyone in the room looking at the space it once took up. No one was really sure who should break the silence first. They were still processing everything that had happened today, and nobody wanted to disturb the heavy atmosphere that still stayed around Hekapoo’s departure. One in particular was deep in thought and concern.

For Marco right now, it was finally settling in that he had a daughter. He had a daughter, whose mother had no other choice but to come to him to raise his daughter. Their daughter, he corrected. And he couldn’t help but worry for Hekapoo, whose grief and pain he could very much understand. She was hurting inside, but Marco had faith that she would be okay someday. 

But for now, the Diazes had to prepare the house for the introduction of the newest member of the family. They were going to celebrate.

“You know, I think we need... a cake!” Angie broke the silence with her cry, bringing back some energy into the atmosphere. “Let’s all make a warm welcome for Seraph!” 

“That’s right!” Rafael agreed. “We need lots of food! We need to make a big meal-no, a feast-to celebrate her homecoming!” 

His enthusiasm was infectious, as the cheers from the other guests demonstrated quite clearly. “And we should get her room ready!”

“I’ll go get ingredients and you get her room ready.” Angie said, the car keys already out in her hand.

“Got it!”

Angie ran out the front door to the car, quickly screeching down the street, while Rafael ran upstairs to get a room ready. Soon enough, the sound of thumping and things being moved around came from the ceiling.

“Wow, Grandma and Abuelo sure are…energetic.” Seraph noted, both impressed and a bit taken aback by their enthusiasm.

“Yeah, they are pretty great.” Marco admitted.

Behind him, Nachos moved forward and tugged at Marco’s sleeve.

“Nachos!” Marco looked down, elated to see his old companion again. “Wait, you’re staying here too?”

“Why not? Nachos is my best friend.” Seraph explained, then she chuckled as the dragon-cycle got up and started licking Marco’s face.

Skullnick decided this was enough, “Okay, let’s get going. This is really a family matter at this point.” 

The others agreed silently that it would be better to leave now, leaving Marco to deal with the dragon-cycle on his own.

Skullnick looked back at Marco as she left, letting out a long, tired huff, “I’m gonna have to do a lot of paperwork because of this, I just know it.”

Slowly, the rest of the group walked through the front door. They all wanted to properly introduce themselves to Seraph and talk with Marco about everything, especially Jackie, but they knew that it could wait for another day. Not today, at the very least.

Marco had someone more important he needed to talk to right now. 

0000

The group stepped out of the house and didn’t share words, they quickly split ways to carry on with their own lives.   
Jackie strapped her helmet on and paused looking back at the Diaz household. She was confused, hurt, conflicted and worried. She had a lot of questions and she knew she’d have to wait to get her answers.   
As she got on her skateboard and skated away she left wondering where she stood in all this. 

“Huh?” As she was about to turn down the sidewalk towards her own house, Janna noticed a certain wand-wielding girl walking out the door of the house behind her. She turned around in surprise. “Star? Where are you going? Don’t you live here?”

With barely a response, Star just walked past Janna with a blank look on her face, almost completely oblivious to the world. Janna could faintly hear what sounded to be ‘Marco’ and ‘Hekapoo’ come from Star’s mouth. 

“Okaaay, um, how ‘bout I get you some donuts? You look like you need some Star.”

Star absent-mindedly nodded as Janna, concerned for her friend, steered her in the correct direction of the donut-shop and away from the parked car she almost walked into.

Back at the house, Nachos had finally gotten off Marco and was now chasing the laser puppies in the backyard. Meanwhile, Marco and Seraph were sitting down at the couch. 

“Hey Dad!”  Seraph called him.

Marco took a moment before he realized she was referring to him. He wasn’t sure he’d ever get used to being called that. “Yeah?”

Seraph’s smile grew, delighted by the fact that she finally had a chance to talk to her father. “I’ve wanted to talk to you for so long! Mom told me so much about your adventures and the times you and Mom met together, but there’s some things I really want to know from you.”

Marco blinked. “Oh, okay. So, what do you want to know?”

“Well, what did you do when you met Mom? She told me you had to chase her clones everywhere,” Seraph said, moving her arms out for emphasis.

“Oh, uh, I’m not sure if that would be interesting for you to hear. The first couple of days were kind of just me trying to find shelter and stuff, dealing with the rain and-ugh-wet socks.” Marco shuddered. Even though he had to bear with the feeling over the years, it still was something that he hated to feel. And Seraph seemed to share in his sentiment.

“Ugh, bleh! That does sound terrible! Don’t you have any other stories to tell me?”

“Well, have you heard of the Swamp of Sadness or the Bog of Eternal Stench? Let me tell you, you wouldn’t believe how useful onions can be...”

0000

A little while later, Angie arrived back home, bags full of food in her arms, when she stopped for a moment in the doorway. She saw Marco and Seraph talking, apparently discussing his adventures from when he was chasing Hekapoo across the dimensions.

“No, everything was on fire! Like, I mean, everything! Bless your mother-even though we were technically ‘against’ each other-she didn’t hesitate to help me out. Mind you, I was in my twenties back then. I was bigger than her and everything, but she just picked me up like I was nothing and carried the both of us out of there. And the thing was, it was actually her, not a clone or anything. She saved me when the mountain came down on us. I would have preferred she didn’t princess-carry me but I’m not complaining.”

Seraph laughed at the mental image. “So, what happened to the Balrog?”

“Well, I’m getting to that. After making it out, we...”

As the pair kept talking, Angie smiled. She was afraid that those sixteen years would have changed her son permanently, keeping him from making connections and leaving him isolated from everyone, but she was overjoyed to see him being so open and talkative again. 

Angie admitted to herself that she didn’t know Seraph that well, but in her heart she couldn’t believe that any child of her son could be a bad person. She still had some mixed feelings about Hekapoo for the sixteen years of her son’s life that had gone by, but since Marco spoke so highly about her-and because Angie could sympathize with the pain the unexpected mother was going through-Angie was willing to give her the benefit of the doubt. 

And as she took a closer look, Angie saw something in Seraph’s eyes, something new and yearning for a family. Becoming a grandmother so soon and in such a manner still shook her to her core, but she felt that, maybe, this was a blessing in disguise and something for the whole Diaz family to celebrate. After all of this consideration, she walked past her son and granddaughter as discreetly as possible and started to prepare the kitchen. 

Tonight, they all would share their first meal with the newest member of the family. All the while, Marco and Seraph continued to talk, the occasional laugh or two ringing out into the room, as Angie started chopping up her ingredients, Nachos still in the backyard with the puppies, and Rafael almost done preparing the room for the newest guest of the house. 

It surely was going to be a good night at the Diaz household. 

0000

Star was walking down a lonely street, the moon just starting to peek over the horizon as she nibbled on one of the donuts Janna had gotten her a few hours ago. It had helped a little, a welcome distraction from everything else going on in her life at the moment. 

She knew Marco had been in Hekapoo’s dimension for 16 years, but she never considered that Marco would’ve changed so much in that time, that things would actually change between them. And she especially didn’t consider that he would’ve done that, to actually have a daughter!  

Now, she found it hard to think of anything else. 

A turmoil of emotions raged inside of Star, but she couldn’t tell what those emotions were. However, one of them, something down deep in her, stood out among the rest. It felt bitter and angry and frustrated at the world, one that just filled her with an indescribable feeling. She hated the feeling and she hated that she felt them towards people that she knew didn’t deserve it, but she just didn’t know why. 

She found herself at a door step of a house. The Diaz house. For a while now, this place had been her home, but now, she could barely recognize it even though it looked as it always did. 

One feeling that was in the forefront of her mind was that of fear. She was afraid that she wouldn’t belong there anymore. 

Did she still have a place with Marco? Did she still have a place in his house? Did she still have a place on Earth?

Star was scared, but she wouldn’t let her fear hold her back. Finishing her donut and turning the doorknob, she pushed open the door and walked in with a smile on her face and was greeted with the sound of people talking and the smell of delicious food. 

It still feels like home, she thought.

She followed the smell and sound towards the dinner table, where she found all of the Diazes sitting and talking together. Including that ‘Sarah,’ she noticed absently, her smile slipping a little.

The table quieted down when they noticed her. “Star, where have you been?” Marco called out to her. “The food’s starting to get cold and we didn’t want to start eating without you.”

Star hesitated a bit, unsure of where to sit now that there was an extra person at the table, especially since said person was sitting where she usually sat. That detail bothered her almost as much as the fact that they barely even noticed that she left the house. But she wasn't given much time to ruminate on those thoughts. 

“Come on Star!” Marco waved her over. “We’ve all been getting to know Seraph while we were waiting for you, and Seraph really wants to meet you.”

“I’ve never met a real princess in person before!” Seraph said, her eyes full of excitement. She pointed to the empty chair next to her. “Why don’t you sit next to me?”

“Yeah, okay...I guess I can sit next to you.” Star still felt unsure about how to feel about the situation, but she didn’t want to be rude in front of a guest, especially Marco’s daughter-she was still in the middle processing the fact.

As Star sat down next to her, Seraph turned to the princess with an eager smile. “You’re the princess of Mewni, right? Your mom and my mom work together on that commission thing. Did you know that?”

Star smiled back, though a bit more awkwardly, and nodded hesitantly. “...Yeeeah, I...I did.”

“So, you’re my dad’s best friend? Like, how did you meet my dad?”

Now this was something Star knew how to answer. “Okay, well, so, the story starts with me at Mewni on my fourteenth birthday, when I received my family’s prized heirloom; the royal magic wand!” Star brandished said wand in front of her with a proud expression on her face, though it quickly turned sheepish. 

“...And then I accidentally set the whole kingdom on fire. After the fires got put out, my parents sent me here to Earth to study my magic. It was so strange and bizarre, and I loved all of it! Lightbulbs, boy bands, fortune cookies, indoor plumbing, Earth is a great place! But most important of all, the first friend I made here on Earth was Marco. And together, we made a pretty great team, especially when Ludo came and we. Kicked. Their. Butts!” 

Seraph was awestruck, Star could tell, from the amazed look on her face. “Tell me more, tell me more!” Seraph said, bouncing in her seat.

Star turned her head and smiled at Marco. “Well, the first thing you need to know about your dad is that there is no one better at keeping you safe with kah-rah-te,” Star said, mock-chopping the air in front of her, “If you ever need help with school work or fighting monsters, he’s always there to lend a hand. He also makes great nachos! Have you tried them yet?” Star practically jumped out of her seat, her face leaning into Seraph’s for a moment, but then she backed up as the girl stared at her with wide eyes. 

“No, not yet, but is that why he named his dragon cycle Nachos?”

At this, Marco looked away rubbing the back of his head, a faint but clear blush on his cheeks. “Uh...I thought it was a good name?”

“Oh, right, you named your dragon-cycle Nachos.” Star sat down, stifling a laugh as the fact came back to her. “Oh you are such a dork!” She playfully batted at Marco, who too began to laugh at the situation as the senior Diazes started to pass around the food, dinner finally starting for the family.

To be honest with herself, Star found it hard to truly dislike the girl. Sure, she still didn't know how to feel about the whole situation, but she would try her best to put those feelings aside.  After all, if she was part of Marco’s family, than she was part of Star’s family too. 

Besides, it wasn't like anything could really come between her and Marco, right?

0000

The moon shined brightly as the night set in. In a sparsely decorated room, Seraph nuzzled a small stuffed dragon as she slept in her new bed. Being only a month old, she didn’t have a lot of things, only a small bag full of essentials and trinkets, but her stuffed dragon was her oldest and most prized possession. It was the very first gift her mother gave her, and she simply could not sleep without it. 

At the foot of her bed slept Nachos, and a few laser puppies were bunched up around Seraph, having decided she made a good bed. All in all, it was a moment begging for a picture to be taken. 

Marco peeked at this scene of serenity from a crack in the door. Making sure that she was well asleep, he quietly closed the door and headed to his room. Passing his bed, Marco opened the window and climbed out onto the roof. There, he sat down and stared up at the stars, his arms resting on his knees.

A swirl of light and sound formed behind him, and he didn’t need to turn around to know who it was. 

“Hey there,” Hekapoo said as she stepped out of the portal.

“Hey H-Poo.” Marco smirked.

She gave him a tired groan. “Don’t call me that.” Shaking her head, she sat down next to him, her dress billowing out under her.

“You know, Seraph just went to bed. I’m sure she wouldn’t mind getting up if you-“

“No,” Hekapoo stopped him, “It’s better if she gets her sleep, you know-a growing child and everything.” She then tilted her head down, casting her face into shadow. “Besides, it would just make things harder.”

Marco looked away for a second, unsure of what to say, but then his voice returned to him. “I’m sorry.”

Hekapoo turned towards him, eyebrow raised. “For what?”

“For not being there when you gave birth. It must have been scary to go through it alone.”

“Well, it wasn’t exactly pleasant, but it’s not your fault. You didn’t know, I didn’t know what was going on at the time, and when I did, I wasn’t exactly able to tell you, being in the hospital and all that. Life’s just like that.”

“I know, it...it just sucks and everything, and I didn’t even know until today about Seraph and-” Marco sucked in a deep breath, trying to calm himself down. “It’s just that...I just think that it would have been nice to...you know, hold my first kid when they were born.”

Hekapoo gave him a wry smile. “You’re a lot more sentimental than I thought.”

“Shut up.” Marco rolled his eyes as he pouted.

“Oh, sorry, did I hit a nerve?” She chuckled. “Well, I do have something for you.” With a flick of her wrist, a small flame whirled into existence over her palm. It vanished as she closed her hand around it, which she then extended towards Marco. “It’s a copy for you, a little something I had one of the nurses take.”

Marco took the object from her and saw it was a picture. Hekapoo was lying in a bed, clearly exhausted but with a smile on her face as she held a small baby in her arms. Their baby. Even though she didn’t have horns yet, Marco would recognize those eyes anywhere.

“It’s not the same as being there, but-“

“Thank you.” Marco held the picture close. It was more than anything he had hoped to get.

“Yeah, I came here to say that to you.” Hekapoo sighed. “You know, thanks for doing this. I know it's gotta be weird for you and all, but-”

“Don’t worry about it. She’s my kid and I want to get to spend some time with her.” Marco smiled, his face somehow seeming both old and young at the same time. “At least it’s better than nothing. Besides, I’ve gotten used to the weird.”

Hekapoo laughed at that. “That’s true, but if you need anything, just let me know. Like, anything. It’s not like I’m broke or anything.”

“Don’t worry. I think we’re fine for the moment, but I’ll keep the offer in mind. But please, just make sure you visit often. Seraph should get to see you too. She should be able to spend time with both of her parents.”

“If you say so. You don’t have to worry about that, you know you won’t be able to keep me away,” Hekapoo said with a wink.

“Well, that would be a nice change in our relationship.” Marco laughed as Hekapoo playfully batted his arm, then the two got closer as the nightly chills started to set in.

They sat together, Marco’s head on Hekapoo’s shoulder, underneath the stars in silence. Marco still felt exhausted from the emotional whirlwind he had gone through today, but here, in the bright light of the full moon, he felt content, and so did Hekapoo.

However, every moment had its end. 

Eventually, they parted ways, Hekapoo returning to her dimension as Marco headed back inside the house. As he settled into bed, he placed the picture on his nightstand and sleep finally overtook him, a small smile on his face as he slept. For the first time since he arrived back on Earth, he felt like he truly belonged there, like he finally got back home.

All the while, a princess was lying on her bed, still wide awake. Her hair was splayed around her as the night breeze drifted in through the window of her tower, a window right above the area where a newly-discovered father and mother just were a short while ago.  
Like Father, Like Daughter

Disclaimer: I don’t own Star Vs the Forces of Evil or any of its elements.  
Special Thanks to my beta IdeaGenerator  
Chapter 02: Meet the Parents

 

Marco’s mind felt sluggish as he opened his eyes. He groaned as he put a hand to his head, his fingers brushing against a sore-feeling bump. Trying to get up and wincing at the pain, he noticed he was laying on the couch in the living room from the sensation of the cushions underneath him. All he could really see at the moment were unclear blobs of color, but he could tell that the biggest ones to him had to be his parents, no mistake about it. Sitting up, he yawned and stretched his arms, smacking his lips.

“Hey Mom, hey Dad. You wouldn’t believe what just happened. I just had the weirdest dream...”

“That wasn’t a dream,” a familiar female voice, one that was just in his dream, said. “You just fainted.”

Marco blinked in surprise and confusion as his eyes finally began to make out the concerned faces of his friends, his family, and a certain red haired girl. Actually, make that two red haired girls. An awkward silence fell over him as the events of his ‘dream’ started to rush back to him, especially what Hekapoo came to tell him.

“…So, um, how long was I out?” Marco said with a wince, trying to cut the tension in the room.

“Long enough for this tea to go cold.” 

Hekapoo’s-his-daughter snapped her fingers and a small ball of fire formed in her palm. She moved the flame closer to the tea cup, heating the cup up until it started to boil, and handed it to her mother.

“Ah, thanks sweetie.” Hekapoo smiled before taking a sip of the now warm tea.

A small distance away, Jackie, standing with the others, scratched the back of her head. She didn’t know what to think or feel at the moment, especially with how Marco was involved with the whole situation. “Uh, should we even be here right now? This seems way too personal. Maybe we should lea-Mmmfph”

She grasped at the pair of hands covering her mouth, but Janna shook her head slowly, a reignited fire in her eyes and a large smile creeping across her face. “No, this is too juicy to leave alone.”

Thankfully, before the situation could get any more stranger than it already was, Alfonso and Ferguson arrived with handfuls of snacks from the kitchen and started passing them out.

“Janna, we got your popcorn, Sensei, I got you an apple, and Miss Skullnick, Ferguson found you some chips.” 

“Really? An apple?” Janna questioned, letting go of the poor skater’s mouth and popping some corn into her mouth.

“I can’t have too much. Mom is making meatloaf tonight,” Sensei told her. 

“Keep quiet, I don’t want to miss anything,” Skullnick said, shushing them. “As the one that’s going to have to file a report on this for the district and not leave any detail out, I demand silence!”

Pony Head grumbled to herself, already getting her phone out. “I have got to text Chelsey about this. She’s gonna flip when she hears this!”

Tom, however, put his hand over her phone. “Uh, that may not be such a good idea Pony Head. Chelsey is a gossip and, if word of this gets out, Hekapoo will track it down. To you.” He silently tilted his head towards Hekapoo, who was still talking with Marco and thankfully wasn’t paying attention to the others’ conversations. “You probably should not try to get her attention that way, especially with those…’things’ you found.”

“…Ah…Maybe Chelsey doesn’t need to know about this.”

Jackie sighed, tired of being kept in the dark of who this stranger was and why it would be such a bad idea to tick her off. “Okay, so just who is she?”

Pony Head and Tom just stared at her as if they couldn’t believe what they were hearing.

“Seriously? Humans don’t know who Hekapoo is?” Pony Head said, an incredulous look on her face.

Getting a clueless shake of the head and a shrug from Jackie, Tom began to explain. “Hekapoo is the ruler of her own entire dimension. She’s the creator of all dimensional scissors and is one of the members of Magic High Commission.”

“She’s one of biggest players in all the dimensions!” Pony Head said. “She’s got enough power backing her that you really don’t want to tick her off!”

“Is that why Star’s been stuck on buffering the past few minutes?” Jackie asked, pointing towards the princess. 

Star’s usual heart marks on her cheeks had changed into two spinning rainbow balls, and Star herself just remained motionless, only staring off into the space before her with what appeared to be a death grip on her wand. Her right eye appeared to be twitching, a contrast to the rest of the blank expression on her face.

“Huh?” Ferguson noted. “Was that me, or did Star’s wand just glow green for a moment?”

Janna shushed him before he could say anything else. “Quiet! I can’t hear anything. And it looks like things just got interesting.”

Marco was moving his mouth, trying to get words out, but they simply weren’t coming out. He looked at Hekapoo and then at the girl next to her. He didn’t think Hekapoo was lying to him. She would trick and tease him back during their game of chase, but this wasn’t something she’d lie about. This wasn’t anything any decent person would ever lie about. 

Marco looked at the girl once more. He was surprised just how much of his mother he could see in her. 

He didn’t know why he liked that so much. 

Marco had never really given much thought about what a kid of his would look like, but he never thought that they would have any traits from his own parents. Then again, as he studied her-his daughter, he reminded himself-for a moment, small yet familiar traits started to become apparent. Her bangs reminded him of his own, and her red hoodie looked almost exactly like the pairs he had upstairs. 

She had a certain look in her eyes, a look he saw every time he looked in a mirror. It was something he just couldn’t describe but something too familiar to not be from himself. 

Emotions he couldn’t understand, ones he had never felt before, started boiling up in him. Yet, at the same time, his entire body just felt numb and unresponsive.

“Hekapoo…” Marco said, unsure of what to say next, “How?”

“How what? I’m not a mind reader you know,” Hekapoo said with a smirk on her face. Her look faltered as she noticed Marco glance towards the elephant in the room currently feeding Nachos a few apples from the fruit bowl the older Diazes brought with the tea, then her expression set back in place and she turned towards her daughter. “Oh, uh, sweetie, why don’t you talk with the rest of the guests and make some friends? The adults need to talk right now.”

“Okay mom!” With that, she got up and beckoned Nachos to follow her to the other side of the room, where everyone were trying their best to get their act back together. 

With that taken care of, Hekapoo turned back to the Diazes and put her finger on her chin. “Hm, where were we? Oh, right. ‘How?’ Well, Marco, you already know the answer to that. You were there when it happened,” Hekapoo answered with a wry expression. “The night we had together right before you blew out my flame.”

“That’s not what I meant!”

“Wait!” Angie spoke up, a delayed yet sudden realization appearing in her and Rafael’s eyes. “You two-“

Marco did not want to have that conversation with his parents right now. “I was thirty at the time!”

He winced at the pair of soul-piercing gazes he felt upon him. “We’ll talk about this later, Marco Ubaldo Diaz.”

Never had he felt so much dread during the harrowing adventures he had while chasing Hekapoo as he did right now. This was not something he wanted to deal with today. “I said I was thirty, okay?!?”

“Well, you were in your twenties the first time,” Hekapoo mumbled.

“Not helping!” Marco gulped as the intensity of his parents’ glares increased tenfold. “How could you not tell me we had a daughter until she was in her teens?”

“Oh, that.” For the first time he could remember, Hekapoo actually looked a little bit sheepish. “Well, it wasn’t exactly intentional on my part. We know I like messing with you sometimes-well, okay, a lot-but not about anything like this. A few days after you left, I started to feel sick, but it wasn’t like I thought I was pregnant at the time.”

“Because you’re a-“

“Yup.”

“And it shouldn’t be possible for-“

“Exactly.”

“Then how did you find out you were pregnant?”

“I’m getting to that. So, after not getting any better for a while, I decided to go to a doctor to see what was wrong with me. But the moment I left my dimension, it actually got worse.”

“But how? I mean, we’re not even the same species.”

“Yeah, well, the thing about cross breeding is that if both species are structurally similar enough, it can happen. But the thing is, our species aren’t even that compatible. In this case, it was a complete fluke. The doctors figured that, somehow, we had met all of the impossible conditions for us to have a child.”

“...Oh.” Nearly everyone else in the room could almost hear the gears in Marco’s head turn at this. “So, what happened? Why didn’t you tell me right away?”

“Well, when I got to the hospital, I just about went into labor. The doctors were just as confused as I was. It just didn’t make any sense to anyone. I mean, I was already pregnant even though it had only been days after you left. Eventually, I gave birth and the doctors ran some tests to figure out what the deal was in the first place.” Here, she paused, as if trying to find the right words. Her characteristic smirk had completely disappeared in favor of a frown.

“According to what they could piece together, because she was conceived in the Afflicted Forest, where things are a bit more wonky time-wise, and because of the differences between our home dimensions’ timelines, time works...differently for her. I had been in the hospital for a few days trying to figure out what to do before I took her home, and I had planned on telling you sooner, but then some...stuff happened.”

“Stuff?”

“She grew, like, really fast. She’s really only about a month old in relative time.”

“A month?!” Marco was shocked. “She’s only a month old?” he asked, looking in the direction of the girl who looked older than she had any right to be. She was trying to make small talk with the rest of the guests who looked strangely uncomfortable, which was to be expected with the given surrealism of the current situation. It was a feeling that Marco was all too familiar with at the moment.

“Yes, she is, and it only slows down when she leaves my dimension. The doctors think something in her system must have been triggered by the time dilation when we got back to my dimension. She ages rapidly in my dimension...” Hekapoo said quietly. The whole room seemed to become filled with silence as she just looked at her tea cup with a blank stare.

“She just...grew up so fast. I didn’t even notice it for the first few days. Then, she was just getting so big and picking up things so fast and growing so much and-” Hekapoo sniffed-actually sniffed-as tears were welling up in her eyes. She moved to hide them, but it was clear that she was wracked with sadness at the moment.

Marco saw something in her eyes, something he never thought he would see from her. He saw fear, real fear, and despair. Marco ran the numbers in his head. If his daughter was already about fourteen years old in body but only about a month old, about thirty days, it would mean that for every day she lived, she would age about five months. 

Marco could understand where her fear came from. In Hekapoo’s dimension, with how quickly their daughter grew, it was very possible that Hekapoo could watch her grow old and pass away in less than year. This wasn’t some sort of curse of immortality, this was a tragic twist of fate. 

The very idea of losing someone like that was horrible. Even having just learned about his daughter, he felt like someone was crushing his own heart in a vice. 

No wonder she hadn’t told him sooner. She was busy raising a daughter and running a dimension alone, several years worth of child rearing all squeezed into a month. 

“…but, “ Hekapoo said softly, “We found out she ages normally outside my dimension. I know this is a lot to ask of you, but would you be able to take care of her?”

Marco already knew what he wanted to say, but someone else beat him to the punch.

“She can live with us,” Rafael said without missing a beat.

“We would have to move some things around but it shouldn’t be an issue,” Angie added.

“A-are you sure?” Hekapoo asked, surprised at the lack of resistance to her request. 

“Of course!” Rafael smiled broadly before moving across the room to hug the surprised young girl, unintentionally crushing her between his arms. “She’s family, we would do anything to help.”

Angie quickly joined in on hugging the silently gasping girl. “Besides, it gives us a chance to get to know our granddaughter.”

“She takes so much after you,” Rafael told his wife.

“Deary, you can just call me Grandma,” Angie said.

“Call me Abuelo!” 

“Gack!” Their blue-faced granddaughter gasped for breath. “Need air!”

Hekapoo smiled and gave a small, tired chuckle as the two adults released their grips on the poor girl. “I should have figured.”

Marco had a kind heart. He was the kind of person who would help others whenever he could, no matter the cost. He would give even a monster a second chance if they said they wanted to be good. Hekapoo knew that much from the several times he had stopped in the middle his pursuit of her and her clones, just to help people in need. It was, in a way, a trait that she admired. One that she knew she could depend on, especially for this task.

Marco came from a family that opened their home to exchange students from all around the world, it was not hard to see where he got it from. When a reckless princess crashed into their lives, despite the dangers and the craziness she brought to their lives, they loved her like family. They were people with a lot of heart and a lot of love. That they accepted her daughter so easily was something that filled Hekapoo with joy, knowing that she could trust her daughter to their care.

Marco took a deep breath and stepped forwards, looking at the girl his parents had finally let go of. Her-his daughter’s eyes locked with his own and he gulped. What was he supposed to say? 

“Ah, h-hey.” Marco tried to smile through the tension he felt in his face. “So, uh, i-it’s nice to me-meet you. I’m Marco…I’m your dad.” He held out his hand to shake hers and instantly mentally scolded himself for such a stupid idea.

“Hi!” She smiled brightly. “I’m Seraph.”

“Seraph?” Marco’s heart felt warm after hearing that, his smile feeling more natural than before. “T-that’s a nice name.”

Before Marco could say anything else, Seraph jumped over and hugged him. “Nice to meet you too, dad.”

Marco’s arms shook, but they slowly wrapped around her and gave her a hug. She felt warm and soft and smelled like charcoal, and before he realized it he was hugging her tighter.  Marco didn’t understand any of this, but he knew that he wanted to protect her and make sure she was okay. He didn’t know how it was supposed to work, but he was already falling in love with this girl. His girl.

Rafael and Angie smiled at their son. They recognized that same reaction as one they  had a long time ago. Remembering back to when they held their son for the first time and felt those same familial instincts take hold, their eyes teared up with joy.

After a moment, Hekapoo cleared her throat. “I, uh...I guess I should leave you be and let you get settled.” She got up and started to walk towards the door, but it looked more like a dead man’s march. It was clear that this was something she didn’t want to do, to leave her daughter behind, and that every step just tore into her heart even more and more. She tried to keep a straight face, but her true feelings poked through the cracks in her mask.

Marco wanted to say something, to comfort her, but he didn’t know what. He knew she had a lot of work to get back to in her dimension, and with the Magic High Commission and the leak in the universe, she couldn’t stay very long. Not even for her own daughter. Who could truly know what to say in a moment like this?

“Mom, wait!” Seraph said as she reached for her mother’s hand, “Do you really have to leave right now?”

Hekapoo came to a sudden stop, her composure truly breaking down and letting her feelings known to the world. She was rooted in place for a second, struck by indecision, then she turned around and pulled her daughter tightly into her arms. Her shoulders heaved with emotion as her sobs filled the air.

“Mom, is everything okay?”

The sobs slowed as Hekapoo looked up into her daughter’s eyes. Her own were puffy and streaked with tears as a caring smile crossed her face. She wiped her eyes and caressed Seraph’s cheek with her hand. “ Hekapoo punctuated her sentence by kissing Seraph on the cheek.

“Ew! Mom!” Seraph yelled, her cheeks flushing.

Hekapoo mussed up her hair, a chuckle coming from everyone and finally breaking the tension in the room as the young girl protested against the action, though they could all tell she loved it. “I know, I know. I love you sweetie, and I’ll see you soon.” She stepped back and pulled out her dimensional scissors. With a smooth motion, she used them to tear a hole in space before her. 

Half a step into the portal, Hekapoo paused, then turned back to look at the living room, at one boy in particular. “Marco, take care of her.”

Marco gave her a respectful nod, for he had no more words left to say. With that answer, Hekapoo smiled one last time, and she stepped through, the portal closing behind her.

Marco didn’t say anything, but he thought that smile was a sad one, full of unspoken hope and pain. They both knew she didn’t want to be separated from their daughter. But, as the way things were right now, this was the best thing she could do for Seraph. And Marco was determined not to mess this up.

0000

Hekapoo found herself walking back into her castle, which seemed colder and more quiet than she felt it should have been. It had only been a month, but in such a short time, her little girl had become such a huge part of her life. Hekapoo had gotten used to hearing Seraph running through the halls and her screams of delight echoing off the walls. She could remember when Seraph had first said “Mama,” when Seraph took her first steps, when Seraph crafted her first ordinary-not dimensional ones, of course-pair of scissors. 

All of these and many more memories flooded her vision as she looked around her home, nearly everything bringing forth to mind another memory. There were the scorch marks on the floor from when Seraph tried to ride Nachos without her supervision when she was eight. And those were the misshapen pieces of metal from when Seraph was learning how to use the forge, up there on one of her shelves. 

Hekapoo smiled a little, picking up a little metal figurine from the shelf. Seraph had tried her hand at metal artwork a week ago, crafting a statue of her mother. Her face was misshapen, her horns were pointed too closely together, and her legs weren’t that big, but Hekapoo loved it all the same. Turning it over, she took a look at the words Seraph had engraved into the back.

I will always love you mommy.

Her smile shattered as it finally hit her, what she had done. What she had to do. For her daughter’s sake.

It had broken her heart when she learned about Seraph’s condition, but now, she just felt numb to the world.

Hekapoo had only left for a few minutes, but it felt so much longer. Never had the castle felt so empty. And because of Seraph’s condition, her daughter could never come back home.

She cried.

0000

The room fell silent as the portal closed, everyone in the room looking at the space it once took up. No one was really sure who should break the silence first. They were still processing everything that had happened today, and nobody wanted to disturb the heavy atmosphere that still stayed around Hekapoo’s departure. One in particular was deep in thought and concern.

For Marco right now, it was finally settling in that he had a daughter. He had a daughter, whose mother had no other choice but to come to him to raise his daughter. Their daughter, he corrected. And he couldn’t help but worry for Hekapoo, whose grief and pain he could very much understand. She was hurting inside, but Marco had faith that she would be okay someday. 

But for now, the Diazes had to prepare the house for the introduction of the newest member of the family. They were going to celebrate.

“You know, I think we need... a cake!” Angie broke the silence with her cry, bringing back some energy into the atmosphere. “Let’s all make a warm welcome for Seraph!” 

“That’s right!” Rafael agreed. “We need lots of food! We need to make a big meal-no, a feast-to celebrate her homecoming!” 

His enthusiasm was infectious, as the cheers from the other guests demonstrated quite clearly. “And we should get her room ready!”

“I’ll go get ingredients and you get her room ready.” Angie said, the car keys already out in her hand.

“Got it!”

Angie ran out the front door to the car, quickly screeching down the street, while Rafael ran upstairs to get a room ready. Soon enough, the sound of thumping and things being moved around came from the ceiling.

“Wow, Grandma and Abuelo sure are…energetic.” Seraph noted, both impressed and a bit taken aback by their enthusiasm.

“Yeah, they are pretty great.” Marco admitted.

Behind him, Nachos moved forward and tugged at Marco’s sleeve.

“Nachos!” Marco looked down, elated to see his old companion again. “Wait, you’re staying here too?”

“Why not? Nachos is my best friend.” Seraph explained, then she chuckled as the dragon-cycle got up and started licking Marco’s face.

Skullnick decided this was enough, “Okay, let’s get going. This is really a family matter at this point.” 

The others agreed silently that it would be better to leave now, leaving Marco to deal with the dragon-cycle on his own.

Skullnick looked back at Marco as she left, letting out a long, tired huff, “I’m gonna have to do a lot of paperwork because of this, I just know it.”

Slowly, the rest of the group walked through the front door. They all wanted to properly introduce themselves to Seraph and talk with Marco about everything, especially Jackie, but they knew that it could wait for another day. Not today, at the very least.

Marco had someone more important he needed to talk to right now. 

0000

The group stepped out of the house and didn’t share words, they quickly split ways to carry on with their own lives.   
Jackie strapped her helmet on and paused looking back at the Diaz household. She was confused, hurt, conflicted and worried. She had a lot of questions and she knew she’d have to wait to get her answers.   
As she got on her skateboard and skated away she left wondering where she stood in all this. 

“Huh?” As she was about to turn down the sidewalk towards her own house, Janna noticed a certain wand-wielding girl walking out the door of the house behind her. She turned around in surprise. “Star? Where are you going? Don’t you live here?”

With barely a response, Star just walked past Janna with a blank look on her face, almost completely oblivious to the world. Janna could faintly hear what sounded to be ‘Marco’ and ‘Hekapoo’ come from Star’s mouth. 

“Okaaay, um, how ‘bout I get you some donuts? You look like you need some Star.”

Star absent-mindedly nodded as Janna, concerned for her friend, steered her in the correct direction of the donut-shop and away from the parked car she almost walked into.

Back at the house, Nachos had finally gotten off Marco and was now chasing the laser puppies in the backyard. Meanwhile, Marco and Seraph were sitting down at the couch. 

“Hey Dad!”  Seraph called him.

Marco took a moment before he realized she was referring to him. He wasn’t sure he’d ever get used to being called that. “Yeah?”

Seraph’s smile grew, delighted by the fact that she finally had a chance to talk to her father. “I’ve wanted to talk to you for so long! Mom told me so much about your adventures and the times you and Mom met together, but there’s some things I really want to know from you.”

Marco blinked. “Oh, okay. So, what do you want to know?”

“Well, what did you do when you met Mom? She told me you had to chase her clones everywhere,” Seraph said, moving her arms out for emphasis.

“Oh, uh, I’m not sure if that would be interesting for you to hear. The first couple of days were kind of just me trying to find shelter and stuff, dealing with the rain and-ugh-wet socks.” Marco shuddered. Even though he had to bear with the feeling over the years, it still was something that he hated to feel. And Seraph seemed to share in his sentiment.

“Ugh, bleh! That does sound terrible! Don’t you have any other stories to tell me?”

“Well, have you heard of the Swamp of Sadness or the Bog of Eternal Stench? Let me tell you, you wouldn’t believe how useful onions can be...”

0000

A little while later, Angie arrived back home, bags full of food in her arms, when she stopped for a moment in the doorway. She saw Marco and Seraph talking, apparently discussing his adventures from when he was chasing Hekapoo across the dimensions.

“No, everything was on fire! Like, I mean, everything! Bless your mother-even though we were technically ‘against’ each other-she didn’t hesitate to help me out. Mind you, I was in my twenties back then. I was bigger than her and everything, but she just picked me up like I was nothing and carried the both of us out of there. And the thing was, it was actually her, not a clone or anything. She saved me when the mountain came down on us. I would have preferred she didn’t princess-carry me but I’m not complaining.”

Seraph laughed at the mental image. “So, what happened to the Balrog?”

“Well, I’m getting to that. After making it out, we...”

As the pair kept talking, Angie smiled. She was afraid that those sixteen years would have changed her son permanently, keeping him from making connections and leaving him isolated from everyone, but she was overjoyed to see him being so open and talkative again. 

Angie admitted to herself that she didn’t know Seraph that well, but in her heart she couldn’t believe that any child of her son could be a bad person. She still had some mixed feelings about Hekapoo for the sixteen years of her son’s life that had gone by, but since Marco spoke so highly about her-and because Angie could sympathize with the pain the unexpected mother was going through-Angie was willing to give her the benefit of the doubt. 

And as she took a closer look, Angie saw something in Seraph’s eyes, something new and yearning for a family. Becoming a grandmother so soon and in such a manner still shook her to her core, but she felt that, maybe, this was a blessing in disguise and something for the whole Diaz family to celebrate. After all of this consideration, she walked past her son and granddaughter as discreetly as possible and started to prepare the kitchen. 

Tonight, they all would share their first meal with the newest member of the family. All the while, Marco and Seraph continued to talk, the occasional laugh or two ringing out into the room, as Angie started chopping up her ingredients, Nachos still in the backyard with the puppies, and Rafael almost done preparing the room for the newest guest of the house. 

It surely was going to be a good night at the Diaz household. 

0000

Star was walking down a lonely street, the moon just starting to peek over the horizon as she nibbled on one of the donuts Janna had gotten her a few hours ago. It had helped a little, a welcome distraction from everything else going on in her life at the moment. 

She knew Marco had been in Hekapoo’s dimension for 16 years, but she never considered that Marco would’ve changed so much in that time, that things would actually change between them. And she especially didn’t consider that he would’ve done that, to actually have a daughter!  

Now, she found it hard to think of anything else. 

A turmoil of emotions raged inside of Star, but she couldn’t tell what those emotions were. However, one of them, something down deep in her, stood out among the rest. It felt bitter and angry and frustrated at the world, one that just filled her with an indescribable feeling. She hated the feeling and she hated that she felt them towards people that she knew didn’t deserve it, but she just didn’t know why. 

She found herself at a door step of a house. The Diaz house. For a while now, this place had been her home, but now, she could barely recognize it even though it looked as it always did. 

One feeling that was in the forefront of her mind was that of fear. She was afraid that she wouldn’t belong there anymore. 

Did she still have a place with Marco? Did she still have a place in his house? Did she still have a place on Earth?

Star was scared, but she wouldn’t let her fear hold her back. Finishing her donut and turning the doorknob, she pushed open the door and walked in with a smile on her face and was greeted with the sound of people talking and the smell of delicious food. 

It still feels like home, she thought.

She followed the smell and sound towards the dinner table, where she found all of the Diazes sitting and talking together. Including that ‘Sarah,’ she noticed absently, her smile slipping a little.

The table quieted down when they noticed her. “Star, where have you been?” Marco called out to her. “The food’s starting to get cold and we didn’t want to start eating without you.”

Star hesitated a bit, unsure of where to sit now that there was an extra person at the table, especially since said person was sitting where she usually sat. That detail bothered her almost as much as the fact that they barely even noticed that she left the house. But she wasn't given much time to ruminate on those thoughts. 

“Come on Star!” Marco waved her over. “We’ve all been getting to know Seraph while we were waiting for you, and Seraph really wants to meet you.”

“I’ve never met a real princess in person before!” Seraph said, her eyes full of excitement. She pointed to the empty chair next to her. “Why don’t you sit next to me?”

“Yeah, okay...I guess I can sit next to you.” Star still felt unsure about how to feel about the situation, but she didn’t want to be rude in front of a guest, especially Marco’s daughter-she was still in the middle processing the fact.

As Star sat down next to her, Seraph turned to the princess with an eager smile. “You’re the princess of Mewni, right? Your mom and my mom work together on that commission thing. Did you know that?”

Star smiled back, though a bit more awkwardly, and nodded hesitantly. “...Yeeeah, I...I did.”

“So, you’re my dad’s best friend? Like, how did you meet my dad?”

Now this was something Star knew how to answer. “Okay, well, so, the story starts with me at Mewni on my fourteenth birthday, when I received my family’s prized heirloom; the royal magic wand!” Star brandished said wand in front of her with a proud expression on her face, though it quickly turned sheepish. 

“...And then I accidentally set the whole kingdom on fire. After the fires got put out, my parents sent me here to Earth to study my magic. It was so strange and bizarre, and I loved all of it! Lightbulbs, boy bands, fortune cookies, indoor plumbing, Earth is a great place! But most important of all, the first friend I made here on Earth was Marco. And together, we made a pretty great team, especially when Ludo came and we. Kicked. Their. Butts!” 

Seraph was awestruck, Star could tell, from the amazed look on her face. “Tell me more, tell me more!” Seraph said, bouncing in her seat.

Star turned her head and smiled at Marco. “Well, the first thing you need to know about your dad is that there is no one better at keeping you safe with kah-rah-te,” Star said, mock-chopping the air in front of her, “If you ever need help with school work or fighting monsters, he’s always there to lend a hand. He also makes great nachos! Have you tried them yet?” Star practically jumped out of her seat, her face leaning into Seraph’s for a moment, but then she backed up as the girl stared at her with wide eyes. 

“No, not yet, but is that why he named his dragon cycle Nachos?”

At this, Marco looked away rubbing the back of his head, a faint but clear blush on his cheeks. “Uh...I thought it was a good name?”

“Oh, right, you named your dragon-cycle Nachos.” Star sat down, stifling a laugh as the fact came back to her. “Oh you are such a dork!” She playfully batted at Marco, who too began to laugh at the situation as the senior Diazes started to pass around the food, dinner finally starting for the family.

To be honest with herself, Star found it hard to truly dislike the girl. Sure, she still didn't know how to feel about the whole situation, but she would try her best to put those feelings aside.  After all, if she was part of Marco’s family, than she was part of Star’s family too. 

Besides, it wasn't like anything could really come between her and Marco, right?

0000

The moon shined brightly as the night set in. In a sparsely decorated room, Seraph nuzzled a small stuffed dragon as she slept in her new bed. Being only a month old, she didn’t have a lot of things, only a small bag full of essentials and trinkets, but her stuffed dragon was her oldest and most prized possession. It was the very first gift her mother gave her, and she simply could not sleep without it. 

At the foot of her bed slept Nachos, and a few laser puppies were bunched up around Seraph, having decided she made a good bed. All in all, it was a moment begging for a picture to be taken. 

Marco peeked at this scene of serenity from a crack in the door. Making sure that she was well asleep, he quietly closed the door and headed to his room. Passing his bed, Marco opened the window and climbed out onto the roof. There, he sat down and stared up at the stars, his arms resting on his knees.

A swirl of light and sound formed behind him, and he didn’t need to turn around to know who it was. 

“Hey there,” Hekapoo said as she stepped out of the portal.

“Hey H-Poo.” Marco smirked.

She gave him a tired groan. “Don’t call me that.” Shaking her head, she sat down next to him, her dress billowing out under her.

“You know, Seraph just went to bed. I’m sure she wouldn’t mind getting up if you-“

“No,” Hekapoo stopped him, “It’s better if she gets her sleep, you know-a growing child and everything.” She then tilted her head down, casting her face into shadow. “Besides, it would just make things harder.”

Marco looked away for a second, unsure of what to say, but then his voice returned to him. “I’m sorry.”

Hekapoo turned towards him, eyebrow raised. “For what?”

“For not being there when you gave birth. It must have been scary to go through it alone.”

“Well, it wasn’t exactly pleasant, but it’s not your fault. You didn’t know, I didn’t know what was going on at the time, and when I did, I wasn’t exactly able to tell you, being in the hospital and all that. Life’s just like that.”

“I know, it...it just sucks and everything, and I didn’t even know until today about Seraph and-” Marco sucked in a deep breath, trying to calm himself down. “It’s just that...I just think that it would have been nice to...you know, hold my first kid when they were born.”

Hekapoo gave him a wry smile. “You’re a lot more sentimental than I thought.”

“Shut up.” Marco rolled his eyes as he pouted.

“Oh, sorry, did I hit a nerve?” She chuckled. “Well, I do have something for you.” With a flick of her wrist, a small flame whirled into existence over her palm. It vanished as she closed her hand around it, which she then extended towards Marco. “It’s a copy for you, a little something I had one of the nurses take.”

Marco took the object from her and saw it was a picture. Hekapoo was lying in a bed, clearly exhausted but with a smile on her face as she held a small baby in her arms. Their baby. Even though she didn’t have horns yet, Marco would recognize those eyes anywhere.

“It’s not the same as being there, but-“

“Thank you.” Marco held the picture close. It was more than anything he had hoped to get.

“Yeah, I came here to say that to you.” Hekapoo sighed. “You know, thanks for doing this. I know it's gotta be weird for you and all, but-”

“Don’t worry about it. She’s my kid and I want to get to spend some time with her.” Marco smiled, his face somehow seeming both old and young at the same time. “At least it’s better than nothing. Besides, I’ve gotten used to the weird.”

Hekapoo laughed at that. “That’s true, but if you need anything, just let me know. Like, anything. It’s not like I’m broke or anything.”

“Don’t worry. I think we’re fine for the moment, but I’ll keep the offer in mind. But please, just make sure you visit often. Seraph should get to see you too. She should be able to spend time with both of her parents.”

“If you say so. You don’t have to worry about that, you know you won’t be able to keep me away,” Hekapoo said with a wink.

“Well, that would be a nice change in our relationship.” Marco laughed as Hekapoo playfully batted his arm, then the two got closer as the nightly chills started to set in.

They sat together, Marco’s head on Hekapoo’s shoulder, underneath the stars in silence. Marco still felt exhausted from the emotional whirlwind he had gone through today, but here, in the bright light of the full moon, he felt content, and so did Hekapoo.

However, every moment had its end. 

Eventually, they parted ways, Hekapoo returning to her dimension as Marco headed back inside the house. As he settled into bed, he placed the picture on his nightstand and sleep finally overtook him, a small smile on his face as he slept. For the first time since he arrived back on Earth, he felt like he truly belonged there, like he finally got back home.

All the while, a princess was lying on her bed, still wide awake. Her hair was splayed around her as the night breeze drifted in through the window of her tower, a window right above the area where a newly-discovered father and mother just were a short while ago.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Author’s Notes: So, Chapter 2 is up and what did you all think? Introducing Seraph the child of Hekapoo and Marco. Honestly, I don’t even remember where I got the name from. I had it in place when I learned it meant ‘Burning One’ and then I heard someone broke down Hekapoo and it means ‘Hundred Flames’ and I just liked that reflection it had and went with it.  Anywho, Marco kinda got hit by a truck full of fatherhood, Hekapoo’s story is kinda a tragedy at the moment, Star is a glass case of emotions, Marco’s parents … are Marco’s parents.  A new status quo is set up and now let’s see how people deal with this. Also, I’m thinking of getting a cover for this story commission so let me know if you have any ideas for cover.
> 
> Editor’s Notes: This was a pretty fun chapter to work on, I have to say, though you guys wouldn't believe how much had been added to or changed around from the first draft. Now, I hope that you'll all enjoy what we've got here, and kudos to anyone who notices the two references I snuck into here.


	3. Chapter 03: Retail Therapy

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Introductions made it's time to settle in

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Nothing much, edited notes from when I posted it on ff.net at the end. Since I can't make a cover for this story here I took those notes out.

   
Marco opened his eyes to find his arms wrapped around Hekapoo. It was a rather pleasant-though not entirely unexpected-way to wake up. He slowly unwrapped his arms from Hekapoo, careful to not wake her up. As he sat up next to her, he reflected upon how he’d ended up here like this with Hekapoo.   
   
His trial had been going on for several years now, and despite the purpose of the trial being to keep him from getting close to her, Hekapoo would sometimes come right to him.   
   
In the very beginning, all those many years ago, she would offer to make him a portal to take him back home from time to time, and every time, he refused. How could he not? How could he even begin to trust that it would really lead him back home, that he wasn’t simply being set for disappointment? Back then, he never wanted to give into her temptations until his mission was complete, not until he had a pair of scissors whose user he could actually trust to take him home. Eventually, after seeing enough the clear determination in his eyes to blow out her flame and finish their chase, she stopped making her offer to him.  
   
Afterwards, her taunts and her words had started to slow down. At some point, she’d just keep popping up, quietly like a specter, at the edges of his vision, always out of his reach but not his sight. She never spoke a word when she did appear. He never was sure just why she kept doing it, but he had his suspicions that she was just making sure whether or not he was still alive, as she most frequently appeared right after he had just narrowly avoided certain death for the umpteenth time.   
   
Marco was sure she had her ways to keep track of him either way, but he appreciated that she personally came to check up on him from time to time. Sometimes, she even brought a few supplies like tools and medicines for him when he had run out of things to survive off of, or when he was teetering on the brink of death. She never did give him any more than necessary, and she often just dropped them off without a word, but he stopped looking the gift-horse in the mouth after the sixth-seventh?-time they saved his life.   
   
From what Marco could guess, Hekapoo didn’t want him to just drop dead on her. At first, he would have prefered not to take the items, but he was not stupid enough to believe that they wouldn’t come into handy. He was still inexperienced and unskilled in the art of surviving in the wild, and without them he might have died. For that, he was grateful for the help.  
   
Eventually, Hekapoo started calling these kind of events ‘timeouts.’ The rules were fairly simple; he was not to try and blow out her flame, and in turn, things would be a bit easier for him during these breaks. She made sure to state when these events started and stopped right off the bat, as she claimed she didn’t trust Marco to figure it out on his own if she didn’t spell it out for him.   
   
After the first couple of times he had been caught unprepared for these timeouts and mistakenly tried to fight her off when she appeared, Hekapoo warned Marco that she’d signal him with a signal flare in the air before she’d appear to him.  
   
As Marco slowly adapted to his new environment, these breaks started to occur less and less frequently, to the point where he thought that they were over. As a result, it came as a surprise to him when one of her bright flares flew out from over the horizon one day. This was especially unusual since he wasn’t even in danger of dying and wasn’t in need of anything when she signaled to him.

When she approached him, he knew that this timeout would be quite different than the ones before. She had come to talk, to ask him a question. No games, no tricks, no supplies, that was all she had come for this time.   
   
Most people would have given up a long, long time ago if they were in the same position Marco was in now. Few people would have kept going half as long as he had, and even fewer would have resisted her offer of throwing in the towel and returning home in an instant, especially with how often the temptation came in the beginning. Yet here Marco was, still going as strong and as-or even more-determined to finally chase her down and earn his scissors.  
   
It was something that had puzzled her, something that had bothered her, and she wanted to know why it was that he kept going, why he would not stop. He had given her the same repetitive answer as he had always given, that it was for his friend, Star Butterfly. She just stared at him after that, like she was scrutinizing every detail of him. Then, she left without a word, just like that.  
   
Though it was a short conversation, if one could even call it that, Marco had enjoyed that moment. It was a nice-if unexpected-change from the near-fruitless task of tracking down Hekapoo’s clones and the monotony of going weeks without anyone to really talk to besides his own thoughts. And that was just the beginning of the shift in their dynamics.  
   
After that mysterious timeout, things had started to change, as every so often, a Hekapoo clone would arrive to ask him a new question. One question turned into two, then four, then entire conversations on all sorts of things, most often about each other. These conversations would be far apart and few in between, but Marco enjoyed these fleeting moments. They made the trial just a bit more bearable, and he started to enjoy her company and her companionship. Over the years and through their chats, Marco had learnt more about her, and her about him.  
   
However, one day, during one of their timeouts, he suddenly realized that the Hekapoo he had been talking to was the real deal, not a clone. He didn’t know exactly when she had started doing it or how he could tell in the first place, but it was something that both surprised and comforted him, the thought that Hekapoo, the real one, would come in person just to talk with him.   
   
Soon, things began to change even more between them. Sometimes, she’d bring snacks and a blanket, and they would share a small picnic. Sometimes, she’d drag him around to random places, telling him to help her with something. And sometimes, she’d just hang around him, claiming to be bored and needing to rest her legs for a bit, though Marco could tell that she didn’t really believe that excuse either.   
   
Over the past few years, they had gotten closer and found out so much about each other in a way that neither of them could have expected. Those years were an experience they both treasured, and they were glad they were able to share it with each other.  
   
Marco was rather proud he had gotten to know Hekapoo so well. He enjoyed the time they spent together, even when it was being spent chasing her across treacherous landscapes. However, he especially appreciated the rare times when he managed to wake up before she did, as most often, he'd awake to find that she had gone while he slept and that their timeout was over.   
   
From these times, he was rather delighted to find out that she made such a cute face whenever she slept and used his shoulder as a pillow. It certainly was something he liked to tease her with whenever their little game restarted, just like his nickname for her.   
   
And now, it appeared to be another one of these rare occasions.   
   
Hekapoo had such a peaceful face that it made Marco feel at ease as well. His hand moved to brush her face free of the stray strands caressing it when her eyes started to flutter. Stretching her arms, she sat up and yawned, the soft noise filling Marco with adoration. It was like hearing a kitten mew, only sweeter, though he tried not to let the emotion show on his face.  
   
“So, you have a good nap?” Marco asked with a sly smirk as Hekapoo turned to look at him.  
   
‘Marco.’  
   
"Yes?”   
   
‘Marco!’  
   
Marco just raised an eyebrow, a bit puzzled but smiling all the same. “Yeah, that’s me.”   
   
‘Time to wake up sweetie!’  
   
“What? What do you mean?” That was all Marco could get out, his brow furrowing in confusion, before the world around him started to fade into a blank void.

0000  
   
"H…poo?" Marco rubbed his eyes. He opened them to find himself in an unfamiliar bed, in an unfamiliar room, alone. He blinked twice, trying to remember where he was, then his memories caught up with him.   
   
Right. This was his old bed, his old room. He was back on Earth.  
   
"Marco? Are you awake?" His mom peeked her head through his door. "Breakfast’s getting cold."  
   
"Oh. Right. I'll be down in a minute." Marco said, sitting up in his bed.  
   
“Okay, see you soon sweetie,” Angie said with a smile while she backed out of the doorway and out of Marco’s sight.   
   
Marco tried to shake his head clear of the fleeting images of his dream-a memory-as his mom walked back downstairs, but they refused to go away. He rubbed his eyes and slipped the picture Hekapoo gave him into a drawer, getting up and starting to get dressed for the day.   
   
He was sure today was going to be a memorable day.   
   
0000  
   
Downstairs, Marco found himself at the dinner table, eating the waffles his mother had prepared. He was told he used to have better manners, but after spending years scrounging for food and learning not to be picky with your next meal, it wasn’t a big surprise that Marco simply gobbled up every bite of his mother's lovingly-prepared food.  
   
This was actually one change in Marco that Angie did like. What mother wouldn't find delight in their children enjoying their food so much? It was at this point that Marco, having scarfed down enough waffles, swallowed and asked a question that he had wanted to ask since he got downstairs.  
   
"Hey mom, where's Seraph? Or Star?"  
   
"You shouldn't sleep in so late mijo," his father told him, striding into the room with another one of his smaller art pieces and hands covered in dust. "Star said she was going to take Seraph to go shopping."  
   
"She wanted to get Seraph a few things to make her room feel more like home." Angie continued. “It was so nice of her to volunteer for-  
   
Suddenly, the doorbell went off, cutting off what she was about to say. “Oh, I’ll get it!” she said.  
   
As Angie went to answer it, Rafael set down his sculpture and went to wash his hands in the sink, an unsurprised expression on his face. "It seems like he’s here."  
   
Marco only quirked an eyebrow. “Who’s here?”  
   
A moment later, Angie walked in with someone, someone who had a face Marco had almost forgotten about, one he wasn’t quite sure he wanted to see at the moment.  
   
"Mr. Candle?!"  
   
"Hello, Marco," the counselor greeted, nodding his head at the acknowledgement.   
   
"Oh good, you remember him."  Rafael patted the man on the back. “We’ve arranged for Mr. Candle here to come and talk with you.  
   
"Your friend Tom gave us his number," Angie explained. “We thought that maybe you should have someone who can help you, who you can talk to, after everything you’ve been through.”  
   
"A counselor?" Marco asked incredulously. “I-I don’t need a counselor. I’m fine!” He then looked at Mr. Candle skeptically. “And I thought that was just a cover job to spy on me and Star for Tom.”  
   
"Yes Marco, I am a fully qualified and licensed counselor. And I’m here to help you with some of your problems and questions.” Mr. Candle clicked his pen. “Heard something big happened yesterday. Want to talk about it?"  
   
"Whoops, looks like we’ve got some errands to run right now. Why don’t you two sit yourselves down and get comfortable?" Marco's dad said, already on his way out the door with his wife. “We’ll be back soon. See you later son!”  
   
As the door closed behind them, half-garbled words of protest tumbled out of Marco’s mouth. Then, slowly and hesitantly, he turned towards the other person in the room.  
   
Mr. Candle just smiled at him. "Do you want to talk here or in the living room?"  
   
0000  
   
In another plane of reality, space tore apart as a swirling blue portal formed in midair. A moment later, Star stepped out, followed by Pony Head and Seraph.   
   
Seraph looked all around her, taking in the sights of all the merchandise on the endless amount of shelves surrounding them. A look of amazement and curiosity sat upon her face.  
   
Pony Head easily noticed her expression. It was hard to when her jaw looked like it was about to fall off. "So, is this, like, your first time at Quest Buy?"  
   
"Yeah," Seraph admitted, blinking the stars out of her eyes, "I haven’t been able to go to any other dimension besides my mom's and Earth-and I guess that dimension with that hospital I was born in too. I wasn’t really old enough enough to go yet."  
   
Star vaguely recalled what Marco had told her the night before. "Oh yeah, I forgot. You're actually a month old but you age fast in another dimen...sion…." Star went pale, her eyes wide. "OH, OH NO! You're not going to start aging really fast outside of Earth, are you? Pony Head, open a portal back, quick!"  
   
"No, no, that only happens in my mom's place," Seraph said, her smile drooping a bit. “But you don’t have to worry about me. I’ll be fine here.”  
   
"Ah, phew, just making sure." Star wiped her brow, relieved that she wouldn’t have to take her home and explain to Marco why the newest addition to his family was physically 50 years older than the last time they saw each other.   
   
"Right, sure." Pony Head continued. " My girl B-fly tells me you don't have much in your room, so we're going to change that!  Today you have two princesses treating you! Anything you need, it's all on us!"  
   
"Really?" Seraph asked.  
   
"Yeah!" Star put an arm around her. "Consider it a late birthday present-ah, an early first birthday present. Now let’s get you some new stuff!"  
   
Pony Head floated to Seraph’s other side and the three of them walked into the labyrinthian maze that was Quest Buy.  
   
0000  
   
Marco was laying down on the couch in his living room, Mr. Candle sitting in a chair next to him. It was almost a perfect picture of a psychiatrist's session. Well, that is, if the patient lying down was busy reading a tablet with parenting books downloaded onto it and trying their best to ignore the counselor next to them.  
   
"So Marco, when would you like to begin our talk?"  
   
Marco glanced a bit at Mr. Candle, but returned his eyes to his tablet, not making a move to put it away and begin talking. Mr. Candle sighed at this.  
   
"Marco, you can trust me. Your parents wanted me to come over and simply talk, and that’s all we will do today.” He adjusted his tie and cleared his throat. "So, must have been quite a shock finding out about your daughter, wasn't it?"  
   
Marco huffed. "And now you're trying to get a reaction out of me to get me to talk."  
   
Mr. Candle shrugged with a smirk on his face. "Guilty as charged. Looks like someone’s studied their psychology.” He shuffled his papers then pulled out what appeared to be a grade report. “So, I heard you were having some trouble in school recently."  
   
Marco bit his tongue. “I’ve…just been having a bit of a rough spot with my studies, but I'm getting better.”  
   
Honestly, Marco was lying a bit there. Besides having a hard time focusing in classes now, he was having a hard time remembering everything that he had learned in school from what felt was a long time ago. He was starting to remember the information somewhat, but he had to review and study entire chapters of notes just to catch back up. Even then, it was still a bit of a struggle for him. He didn’t want to worry his friends and family about it, as he knew he could do it on his own, just like he had back in Hekapoo’s dimension. He just wanted everything to go back to normal, to how things were before.  
   
But then again, what was normal for him anymore?  
   
Some of his feelings must have shown on his face, as Mr. Candle simply raised an eyebrow. “You know, there’s no shame in admitting you need a little help. You’ve been through a lot, it’s no surprise if you were shaken up by the experience.”  
   
Marco scoffed at that, a frown on his face. "I don’t need help."  
   
"Marco, all I want to do is to talk and help you deal with everything and anything that may be bothering you. I just want to be able to tell your parents how you're doing."  
   
"What do you mean? I'm fine, I'm doing great."  
   
"Well, you may think so, but your friends and family don't. They're worried sick, worried enough to call ask for a counselor for you. Now what does that tell you?"  
   
"It doesn't tell me how to get you to leave." Marco shot back.  
   
Mr. Candle just pinched the bridge of his nose and sighed. "Okay, how about we make a deal? You just talk to me for a while and whatever I think, I will tell your parents that you're okay. If you want to call it quits, we can call it a day and I’ll never come back. Either way, I won't tell anyone anything you say, not even Tom. Patient confidentiality and all that."  
   
Marco stared at the man for a long hard moment, then eventually relented.  
   
"Okay, I'll take you up on that."  
   
"Super! Now, let's start with the big important stuff." He leaned in towards Marco. "What and how much of those sixteen years do you remember the best? I mean, I can’t say I have any personal experience with time shifts, and, as far as I know, no human other than you does. So, how about you help me paint a picture of what it's like?"  
   
Marco was quiet for a moment.   
   
"...Well, lately, some memories have been getting a bit...fuzzy. It's not like I'm forgetting everything or anything, it’s...more like not being able remember all the details of your fifth birthday and all you have is a vague impression of having been there and what happened."  
   
Clicking his pen and running it across the surface of his notepad, Mr. Candle nodded. "Okay, okay, that’s a good start. But what exactly do you mean by ‘things have been getting fuzzy?"  
   
"For me, it’s as though some early memories are just blurring into each other. The incredible adventures I’ve had, the beautiful lands I crossed, I can still remember a lot of them. But all of that really came after the years I spent just trying to figure out how to survive out in the wild on my own.”   
   
Marco chuckled, but it sounded tired and weary, almost at odds with his young appearance. “Back then, I could barely even track my way out of a paper bag, let alone begin to start hunting down any of Hekapoo’s clones. Those days and nights were full of nothing but me trying to find my way in a multiverse I barely knew at the time, doing the same routine over and over again. Try to get food, build a shelter out of anything I can, and check to see if I was on Hekapoo’s trail. After all that time, all those years, they just blended together.” He laid still for a second, staring at the ceiling as if searching for something.  
   
“I don’t know when I stopped thinking about those years, but now, back on Earth, I can barely bring them back, not even when I try to. All I remember is that it was tough, and that I had made a routine to keep me going. A good deal of my memory, before I started being the adventurer I am-I mean, I was-is like that. But some days...Some days I know I won't ever forget."  
   
"That's fair, some days can be pretty memorable and hard to forget. But, out of the days you do still remember clearly, how many of those days would you describe as ‘good?"  
   
A slow smile stretched across Marco’s face, a pleasant one this time. "Well, most of them really."  
   
0000  
   
All was calm in the aisles of Quest Buy. Shoppers were shopping, cash registers were registering, and Pony Head and Star were dodging and firing energy blasts at what was chasing them.  Finally, both of them turned a corner and jumped behind some of the shelves to avoid the blasts.  
   
Pony Head yelled over the commotion. "Who the heck leaves Slaughter-nauts and Murder Golems on in a store?! I get you sell them! You sell everything!  But don't leave them on! I don't care how many we bust up, I am not paying for them!"  
   
Meanwhile, Star took a deep breath and readied herself. She jumped back into the open aisle, wand ready and glowing. "NARWH-" Star paused in the middle of her spell to duck.  
   
A stone head with a newly formed and still glowing dent the shape of a fist went flying over her head. Star got up to see Seraph, standing at the end of the aisle with her outstretched fist engulfed in flames.   
   
"Ugh, that’s annoying," she said with a slight frown as she lightly shook her hand, the flames curling around her fingers dying down.  
   
Both Star and Pony Head looked into the aisle, where all that remained of the weaponized automatons were their burnt, scourged, and melted remains. Both princesses stared in utter surprise.  
   
On their own, those things would have been no match for either Star and Pony Head, but the large group that had been chasing after them gave even their combined penchant for destruction some trouble.  
   
Pony Head finally spoke to Star, unable to look away at the sheer destruction in front of her. "I know Marco is all about the hand fighting and junk, but that has to got to be from Hekapoo."  
   
Star could only nod slowly.  
   
"Man, that was amazing!" Seraph jumped up in delight. "Are there any more of those things? I want to do that again!"  
   
"Yeah, but she definitely got that from Marco." Star smirked, reminded of the reaction Marco had the night they first met, right after his first monster fight.  
   
"No, no, uh, it looks like they're fresh out.” Pony Head pushed Seraph along with her muzzle, away from the scene of automaton carnage. “Plus, I don’t want to be around when they start asking who’s going to pay up."   
   
Quickly, they hurried away from the mess before any employees showed up. After checking for any sloths in the vicinity, Star gave a sigh of relief. "Looks like we’re all clear.” She chuckled and turned to Seraph. “Good thing your mom’s a fire elemental, or we might have gotten in some trouble back there.”  
   
"Huh?" Seraph just looked at Star in confusion.  
   
"Yeah, you know, fire powers? Your mom?"  
   
Seraph furrowed her brow. "My mom’s not a fire elemental."  
   
At this, Star got confused as well. “Well, isn’t she on-”  
   
"Hey, you three.” The trio looked up to see a sloth guy waving at them. “Like, do you know who caused that mess back there? Someone’s going to have to pay for it.”   
   
“...Uhhhh…”  
   
0000  
   
"Being there was actually pretty great. I had a goal pushing me forwards, and every day I would do or learn something new and exciting," Marco explained to Mr. Candle as best he could. "Wherever I would go, I would try to help whenever I could, and every day brought me one step closer to catching Hekapoo."  
   
Mr. Candle took note of it. "Having a clear purpose to drive you every day must have been great, I presume."  
   
"I guess it was."  
   
"Yes, but was there more to it? Was there any other reason you liked being there?"  
   
"I-I don't know, a purpose is one thing but you can always find a purpose. You can find your purpose anywhere. You make your purpose."  
   
"So then, it was the adventure that drove you?"  
   
"Well, uh, no. I had plenty of adventures back here with Star."  
   
"Hm…” Mr. Candle flipped through his papers, a questioning look on his face. "Yes, yes, about Star Butterfly…She mentioned a little something about when she caught up with you. How you almost didn’t want to come back. That you, quote unquote, ‘liked going on adventures whenever you wanted,’ that ‘it was the journey.” He leaned back in his chair and looked Marco on the eye. “You did come back to Earth in the end, but, if I may ask, what exactly was it that made you hesitate?"  
   
“Uh…” Marco tried to concentrate and think. “I...I don’t know. Maybe I did want something more. I loved the freedom and the adventures and the life I had made for myself in Hekapoo’s dimension, but it wasn’t like I didn’t want to see my family and friends again. It’s just…”   
   
He found it hard to describe.   
   
“I lived that life for so long, being in charge of my entire life and able to go and experience everything the multiverse had to offer whenever I wanted and however I wanted. It was just so hard to imagine me living any other life than the one I had made for myself.” All he could do was sigh at this. “It still is.”    
   
Mr. Candle tapped his chin in thought. “Then what keeps you here then, if you feel that way so much?”  
   
“I guess it’s that...If I did leave, then I’m afraid I might not want to come back. I might never come back. That I might never see any of them again.”  
   
“Really? And what about now?”   
   
Marco didn't have an answer to that.  
   
0000  
   
After that incident, the girls had gotten a shopping cart and were throwing in anything that drew Seraph's attention.   
   
Right now, they had stopped at the snack section, which had snacks from all over the multiverse spread across infinitely long aisles. Just about anyone would be daunted by such a choice.  
   
"Okay, for this, just go with your favorites or something." Pony Head started to poke around for treats for herself. “Oh heck yeah! Look at this B-fly! It’s Chee-Z Chaaaaps!”   
   
Star bit her lip in thought. "I think I'm going to try something new. I'm in the mood for something sugary and sweet." Star picked a few colorful bags of candy and placed them in the cart. "Anything looks good to you, Sarah?"  
   
"I don't know," Seraph said, “I can’t decide. There’s too many!”   
   
"Hmm." Star tapped her chin. "Okay, what flavors do you like?"  
   
"I like savory stuff," Seraph said, poking a bag with her finger. It was full of something squishy and green, but it didn’t look appetizing to her. "Maybe something a little spicy as well. Mom likes spicy stuff and I sorta picked up on that."  
   
"Savory and spicy," Star noted. "Yeah, Marco likes that too." Star scanned over the snacks and spotted the aisle for them. "Okay, let's get a lot of that stuff so you can try them out."  
   
"Oh what the heck, let's just get just a bunch of everything to try it out." Pony Head started shoving entire shelves of snacks into the cart, creating a small mountain of deliciousness.  
   
Star and Seraph just looked at each other and shrugged, starting to grab armfuls of snacks as well.  
   
0000  
   
It had been a few minutes since Mr. Candle asked his question. He had waited for a reply, but with little progress to show for so far, he decided to try and poke directly for one instead. "So Marco, do you have an answer?"   
   
"I don't know," Marco admitted.  
   
"You don't know?"  
   
"I...don’t know. I just don't know. It just felt right, being there."  
   
"But you came back. Why? Was it your friends and family?"   
   
"My family and my friends...Well, I did miss them back then, but I hadn’t seen them for so long that I guess I just sort of...moved on, you know?” Marco bit his lip.   
   
“Though I still missed them deep down, I just...started thinking of them less and less as time went on. I had made a life for myself, traveling the multiverse, tracking down Hekapoo, having amazing adventures. It was great, but Star helped to remind me of them, to remind me that I had missed them. I think that that was what convinced me to come back. But now, after coming back, it’s like I don’t belong here anymore.”  
   
Marco was silent for a while, a frown on his face. “I’ve been trying to go back to what my life used to be like, but it’s just so difficult. I can’t remember how to be ‘myself’ half of the time, my friends and family look at me like I'm a complete stranger at times, and sometimes-” Marco stopped talking, his frustration causing his breaths to become ragged.  
   
Mr. Candle waited for his breathing to ease up for a moment, then spoke. “And sometimes what?”  
   
As the beating of his heart went back down, Marco took a deep breath and exhaled slowly. “...Sometimes, I think about leaving a few days after I came back, about running off and exploring the multiverse. Just going off on my own and not telling anyone, not Star or my parents. But, I can’t let myself go. I want to catch up with everyone, and I don’t want to forget them again. I saw how worried Star was and how my parents reacted to me after I came back, and I don’t want to worry them even more. It just doesn’t feel right to leave anyone again.”  
   
"So, what about Hekapoo?"  
   
"What?" Marco stared at him.   
   
Mr. Candle just smiled back, an odd sparkle in his eye. "What is she to you?"  
   
"What do you mean?"  
   
"I mean, I may just be grasping at straws here, but you did tell me that you rather enjoyed that 16 year-long chase of yours, so clearly she had some influence on your actions, even in a passive way. And, despite how she brought you to her dimension away from Earth, the ‘game of chase’ you two had, and how, according to a Miss Star Butterfly, you didn't know about the time dilation until the very end, the two of you clearly got and stayed on close terms by the end of things, especially considering you now have your daughter living with you. So,” Mr. Candle said, looking him directly in the eye, “let me ask you; what is Hekapoo to you?"  
   
Marco stared at him, unsure of what to say to that.  
   
"Look Marco, I'm not going to pry into any personal details or make you talk about anything that will make you uncomfortable," Mr. Candle started off. “I just would like to know what you think of her."  
   
"Well, what can I say about her? Yeah, she's special to me. We used to be like rivals, but over time she had become someone I could trust, someone I could always depend on. A close friend."  
   
"And then, at some point, the two of you got…Ahem, excuse me, more ’intimate."  
   
Marco looked aside and rubbed the back of his neck, a faint blush in his cheeks. "Yeah, we kind of did."  
   
“And you two had a child together. Now, that brings me to my next question. According to what I’ve been told, you only found out you had a daughter yesterday. I’d imagine that such a thing must have come as a big shock to you, so,” Mr. Candle paused, letting his words sink in, “I want to ask, how do you feel about the whole thing?"  
   
0000  
   
After wandering off for a bit, Seraph found herself standing before a rack of weapons. The metalworks shone in the display in front of her, an allure of action and danger emanating from them. Her eyes looked around the selection of weapons before they fell onto a long sword, one that looked quite enticing to her with its sharp blade and ornamental decorations.  
   
"Oooh." Transfixed, Seraph started reaching for the leather-bound grip, almost as if she was spellbound by the sword. Absentmindedly, she wondered where she left Star behind and what Star would think of such an awesome blade.  
   
Meanwhile, several aisles over, Star was checking out a set of lava lamps, similarly transfixed by the colorful blobs bouncing around inside them. "Hey, what do you think of these lamps Sharon?” After hearing no response, she called out again, unmoving from her position in front of the lamps. “Sharon? Come look! They’re changing color again!”   
   
Again, no response came. Star’s head shot up, the lamps now at the back of her mind. “Sharon?” Turn. “Sierra?” Another turn. “Serah?”  
   
Her eyes turned to pinpricks, a ball of horror settling in her gut.   
   
“...oh no.”   
   
Back at the weapon rack, Seraph had picked the sword from its stand and was now swishing it around, bashing and cutting imaginary enemies. “Shiiiiing! Shiiiiing!” she said out loud with each swing. She then narrowed her eyes and took what she hoped looked like a stance of pure awesomeness. “You think you can beat me? Hah! Well, why don’t you take a load of this!”  
   
And with that, she swung her sword as hard as she could in front of her, the sound of the metal blade cutting through the air like music to her ears. However, she had forgotten one key step in achieving maximum coolness; holding on tight enough. And right at that moment, a very worried princess ran out around the corner of an aisle into the open.  
   
“-raph! Where are you SeraAAHHH!!!”   
   
THUNK  
   
Seraph looked on in horror with her hands over her mouth at the sword sticking out of the wall, directly above the golden locks of a familiar face she almost just cut off.   
   
A few blonde strands of hair fell to the ground as Star’s eyes slowly turned from the sword that almost beheaded her to the girl who had just thrown it. Her face was a rumbling mixture of emotions; fear, horror, panic, and now, most notably, something that started to look more and more like fury.  
   
“OhmygoshImsosorryImsosorryImsosorry-” Seraph said quickly, trying to excuse herself, “-IdontknowwhathappenedIwasjustplayingarounditlookedsoniceandcooland-”  
   
"You’re not getting that sword." The voice stopped Seraph’s explanation in its tracks and sent a shiver down her spine. “I’ve been looking all over Quest Buy for you! Where the heck have you been?!”  
   
“...I-I-I just...I was just was walking around and saw that stand of cool weapons and thought you might like them and stuf-”  
   
“Like them. Like them?!? You almost cut my body off with a sword! What the heck were you thinking?!”   
   
Seraph stepped back, a flinch coursing through her body. Her bottom lip started to tremble, and she started to curl down into herself.  
   
Star didn't know why Seraph reacted like that at first, but then she felt her face and looked at the girl more closely. A scowl was contorted into place as her heartbeat was thumping in her ears, and the girl in front of her had an expression of fear, of terror. She was afraid.  
   
Of her.   
   
“I-I-It was just an accident, I didn’t mean to,” Seraph meekly stated, and Star felt guilt balling up in her gut when tears started to form in the girl’s eyes. She didn't mean to make her cry!  
   
“It's okay it's okay!” Star took hold of Seraph’s hands and tried to put on a smile. “I'm sorry, I just...don't know what came over me there.” Seraph sniffled a little, and Star tried to think of what to say to her. “I was just so worried I wouldn’t find you again! You can’t just wander off and mess around with weapons like that! Someone could’ve gotten hurt!”  
   
Seraph just looked at Star with guilt-ridden eyes in silence. “...Look, please just…just…” Star inhaled deeply and gave a long sigh. “...Just don’t run off like that again, okay? Who knows what could’ve happened if I didn’t find you.”  
   
As Seraph slowly nodded and began to wipe her eyes, Star spotted an ice cream stand in the distance. Maybe that could cheer Seraph up!  
   
“How about I get you some ice cream, ‘kay?”  
   
Sniff. “...okay.”  
   
0000  
   
"Well, I think-actually, no, I know Seraph is a miracle. Even though I don’t know how she could have been born in the first place, I don't really care about that. She deserves to have her father in her life, and I want to make sure that happens, though I am a little upset about some things.” Marco looked aside for a moment, gathering his thoughts. “I mean, don't get me wrong, but...I would have loved to have held her when she was a baby, to see her take her first steps, to hear her first words...You know what I mean?"  
   
"Of course! It's understandable that you'd feel that way. I can't imagine how difficult it must be for you, but if it is any solace, I am certain that you would make a great father."  
   
Marco laid down into the couch and stared up at the ceiling. Those words from Mr. Candle made him feel better, more reassured in the future. He wasn't completely sure why, but Marco felt as though a large weight had been removed from his shoulders, and the corner of his mouth curled in agreement with him.   
   
Mr. Candle looked at him, his pen tapping his chin in thought, before he continued. "You know what, let's double back for a bit. I want to ask you again; what do you think of Hekapoo?"  
   
"What more is there to say?"  
   
"Well, you two seem to have quite a unique relationship from what I can tell, so what I want you to do is try and describe it to me so that I can try to understand."  
   
Marco thought about it for a moment. "I don't...I don't really know how to describe it."  
   
"Are you afraid of losing that relationship?"  
   
"What?! No!” Marco immediately answered, resolute in his conviction. “That would never happen! Hekapoo values our relationship like I do, and I know she wouldn’t do anything to break it."  
   
"You certainly seem to have a lot of faith in her."  
   
"Of course I do."  
   
"Did it make it easier to leave when she said you could come back at any time?"  
   
"Yeah-I mean, I guess it helps to know I can go back to visit her anytime I want."  
   
"Hm." Mr. Candle simply smiled at him.  
   
"Okay, seriously, what's with the smile?"  
   
0000  
   
The trio of girls had been wandering Quest Buy for a while now. The maps there were never of any use in telling where you were or where the department you wanted was, but finally, after an hour or so, they had stumbled onto the prime motherload of all departments.  
   
"Hey look!" Star shouted. “It's the clothing department!"  
   
"Clothing?" Seraph only quirked an eyebrow. “What do we need at the clothing department?”  
   
Pony Head smirked at her. "Girl, you’re gonna need a lot more variety in your clothes if you’re gonna hang out with us. Besides, you kinda dress a lot like your dad."   
   
"Yeah," Star mused out loud as she tugged at the sleeve of Seraph’s red hoodie, "it really looks a lot like Marco's hoodie. Where’d you get it in the first place?"  
   
"Oh, it was something mom gave me," Seraph answered. "She said it was something she had to remind her of my dad."  
   
Star’s lips pursed in thought over that. From what she could remember, Marco had only taken one of his hoodies when he was taken by Hekapoo, but he brought the same one back at the end. Had Hekapoo snuck into his room and stolen one of them? It wouldn't be that hard for her to open a portal to Marco’s room anytime she wan-  
   
Aaaand she was going to ignore that train of thought. "Okay, let's get you some new clothes." Star hurriedly pushed Seraph along the row of dresses, motioning for her to pick something out for herself.  
   
"Yeah," Pony Head said, smiling at Seraph, "pick something out for yourself. Like your old man said, ‘Individuality is totally like not criminality,’ or whateve’s."  
   
Seraph paused for a moment. "That kind of sounds like something a doll my mom got me would say." She shrugged before going back to the clothes.  
   
“A doll? You still play wit-oh wait, right. Nevermind.” Pony Head zoomed around the shelves with a judging look on her face, then came back and dumped a small pile of clothes in Seraph’s arms. "Hm, you seem like a fall or maybe a summer to me, so let's start out with those colors."  
   
As Seraph went into the dressing room to try them on, Star and Pony Head stayed back to wait for her. In the meantime, Star tried to put on a floppy hat and see how look it looked on her in the mirror, but then Pony Head pushed her over to a dark corner of the store. "B-fly, are you okay? You've been acting a bit cray-cray today."  
   
"Pony Head, what are you talking about?" Star just looked back at her in confusion.  
   
"We’ve been besties for, like, foreve’s girl, you think I wouldn't notice anything wrong? Besides, you never forget to get me a scoop of fruity mint swirl, and yet you go ahead and get ice cream with Marco’s kid without getting me any.” At this, Star tried to excuse herself, but Pony Head wasn't taking any of it. Not without a raised eyebrow, that is. “Does this have to do with your crush on Marco?"  
   
"What?!" Star choked out. "Me and Marco? Ha! Whaaat? Pfft! No way!"  
   
Pony Head just looked at her with a flat expression. "Uh-huh, you keep saying that. But seriously, I can tell something's bothering you bad B-fly. I don't like being all that mushy and stuff, but you know you can count on me if you have any problems."  
   
"No no, Pony Head, you don't need to do that, but thanks for offering." Star sighed. "It's just that… things are just a little bit weird right now with Sarah around, but I can't blame her for all of my problems." Pony Head opened her mouth as if to say something, but Star kept talking before she could say anything. "It wouldn't be right. Besides, things’ got to be weird for her too, having to go live on Earth without her mom without any friends or anything.” At this, Star stared Pony Head straight in the eye.   
   
“I was like that once, but Marco changed all of that for me. I just feel like I should return the favor by trying to be friends with his...with his daughter." It felt uncomfortably strange for her to say that word out loud, though she couldn't figure out why.   
   
"Aw girl, that got me right in the heart. Okay, let's hug it out."   
   
Star just chuckled before hugging her friend.  
   
"But really, if you ever need to talk about this, I am there for you anytime B-fly," Pony Head whispered to her. “Just let me know and I'll do the rest.”  
   
"Hey, uh, Star? Pony Head?”   
   
Star quickly let go of her friend when she heard that voice, trying her best to look as normal as possible. “Yes? What is it?”  
   
“What do you two think?" Seraph asked as she came out of the dressing room, her hands timidly behind her back.  
   
“Oooh, that looks nice!”  
   
0000  
   
"So, Marco, seeing as it's starting to get late, can I give you my thoughts before I go?" Candle leaned in and steepled his hands together. Their talk had lasted well into the day, and now it seemed that it was about to finally come to a close.   
   
"Yeah, suuure?" Marco said, less than excited for what he would hear.   
   
"I think you just need some more time to get used to life back on Earth."  
   
"I know I need to-wait, what?" Marco jolted up from the couch in confusion. "You’re not going to go on about how I should try to ‘be more involved with my friends and family’ or anything?"  
   
"Well, that would be a good thing for you to do, but Marco,” Mr. Candle said as leaned back in his chair, “I think you’ll be just fine with a little bit of time. You just have to get used to being back in this world and around everyone, that's all.   
   
As Marco quietly mulled over his words, Mr. Candle sat up and put his hand on Marco’s shoulder. “I do realize it might not be the easiest thing for you to, but I think it might make things better for yourself if you stopped trying so hard to be who you used to be and focus on being who you are now. Marco, you're still who you are, just with a few extra years of memories and experiences added on. There’s no harm in not being the all-perfect-grades safe kid anymore, and I'm sure your family and friends would understand if you go ‘out’ by yourself sometimes. Just be sure to let them know beforehand, okay?"  
   
Beep beep. Beep beep.  
   
Looking down at his watch, Mr. Candle got up from his chair. "And that looks to be about it.” He brushed off his shirt and looked Marco in the eye. “Now Marco, I did tell your parents I would give them my thoughts on our conversation, but like we agreed on, I won't be telling anyone about what you told me too much. If you ever want to talk to me again, your parents have my number and you’re free to come to my office anytime. See me whenever you want, Mr. Diaz." And with that said, Mr. Candle opened the door and started to walk away.   
   
“Mr. Diaz? Why'd he call me Mr. Dia-” Marco’s eyes widened in realization. “Wait a minute.”  
   
Rocketing out of his seat and to the door, Marco called out to Mr. Candle. "Hey! Don't think I missed what you did there! You kept calling me by my first name to get me more comfortable with talking to you! That's day-one psychology! I won't fall for that again!"  
   
Mr. Candle simply turned around, shrugging his shoulders with a smirk on his face. "Why, I have no idea what you mean, Marco." He then put his hands in his pockets and whistled off, not looking back at the house as he did so.  
   
0000  
   
A few minutes later, after Marco got the adrenaline out of his system, he found himself on the couch thinking about what Mr. Candle had said to him. However, his thoughts were interrupted by the sound of space and reality tearing apart. A swirling portal formed in the middle of the living room and Star emerged from it, several bags lining her arms.  
   
"Star?" Marco got up and looked at the princess, who was currently sporting a sheepish grin.   
   
"Sorry we're back so late Marco. We had to find something to eat after we were done shopping, and believe me, three pounds of snacks don’t make that good of an appetizer. "  
   
As Star’s stomach grumbled in memory of that horrible experience, Seraph stepped out of the portal carrying several bags in her arms as well, though of a much smaller number than the princess. At this, Marco could only blink in surprise.  
   
"Hey dad! Look at what Star got for me! What do you think?"  
   
Seraph’s outfit, though she still had her hoodie and boots on, had changed. Underneath a stylish orange leather jacket was her red hoodie, a simple yellow blouse resting under both layers. With her original pair of boots came a new black pair of jeans, and to top off the whole ensemble was a bright red ribbon belt with a silver buckle wrapped around her waist.  
   
As he looked up and down at Seraph’s new outfit, Marco could only smile. "You look great in it!" he said, stepping forwards and wrapping his arms around her tightly.  
   
Though she was a bit surprised at first, Seraph hugged him back. "Thanks, dad."  
   
After a short moment of hugging, Marco pulled back and looked her in the eye. "And did you say thank you to Star?"  
   
"Daaad, of course I did," Seraph told him, pulling him back into a hug so he couldn't see her mouth ‘Thank you’ to Star.  
   
Star just chuckled at the scene, then she looked down at the bags in her hands, seemingly unsure of something.  
   
"You...know what, I think I'll go leave these in your room. You should probably spend some time with...with Marco," Star excused herself as she went up the stairs, leaving Marco and Seraph to finish their hug.  
   
After she left, Marco sighed. "Too bad you two already ate. I was thinking about making some friendship-slash-family nachos tonight, but looks like I won’t need to."  
   
"I can still eat!" Seraph told him with a new and eager look on her face. "I want to try those nachos!"  
   
“Well, okay, but it might take some tim-”  
   
A portal formed next to them as a sloth stepped out of it, a clipboard in his hand. "Hey, Quest Buy delivery here for, uh, a Seraph Diaz?"  
   
"Right here!" Seraph took his clipboard and signed it as Marco stared in confusion.   
   
“Wait, what deliver-”  
   
"Bring it in guys!" the sloth called out, and several more sloths came out of the portal carrying several large boxes. As the sound of heavy objects being moved around filled the living room, Marco turned Seraph around to face him.  
   
“Seraph, what’s all this?”  
   
Instead of a sheepish look on her face like would be expected, Seraph just looked as happy as could be. “Star thought that I might need some things for my room, so…” she said as she shrugged with an innocent smile.  
   
"And she paid for all these?" Marco felt his shoulders drop as he asked, the urge to facepalm growing every second.  
   
"Yeah," Seraph answered as a sloth with a large ornate dresser passed besides her. “Ooh, she even got the one with rubies on it! I thought she said you guys were sold out!”  
   
Right there and then, Marco decided he needed to have a talk with Star about spoiling his daughter.  
   
"STAR!!!"  
   
0000  
   
Walking down the night-covered streets, Mr. Candle was in the middle of a phone call with the elders of the Diaz house.  
   
“...Yes, yes...That’s all I can say about that...No, there’s no need for that, it was my pleasure...Okay, let me know if any new developments come up. Thank you, goodbye.”  
   
As he made to put his phone away, a torrent of flame burst into existence to his side. A pair of lilac hands split the curtain of fire and a horned figure stepped out.  
   
"Hey," Tom greeted with a wave as the flames died down behind him. In turn, Mr. Candle simply nodded back.  
   
"Hello, sir."  
   
"So, how did things go?"  
   
"Marco is fine, he just needs some time to readjust.” Mr. Candle looked to the side and shifted his jaw a bit. “Actually, finding out he had a daughter was probably the best thing that could’ve happened for him."  
   
Tom just stared at him in bewilderment. "Really, having a kid helped him?"  
   
"I'm sure he probably would have adjusted back either way, though having a kid like this would just help accelerate things. Plus, well..." Mr. Candle trailed off.  
   
"Plus what?"  
   
Mr. Candle stroked the end of his beard slowly, the corners of his eyes slightly crinkling. "It's actually kind of funny. Sixteen years and he's still not good at realizing some things, even with a kid and her..."  
   
"What are you talking about?" Tom asked, completely and utterly lost at this point.  
   
Candle just walked around the confused demon and continued his walk off into the night. “I’ll get back to you later, sir. Got some stuff at the office to take care of.”  
   
"Dude, don't just walk away!" Tom exclaimed behind him. He then huffed and crossed his arms in annoyance. "Man, that's just rude!"  
   
0000  
   
Marco was lying down on the floor, beaten and weary from the battle he had just endured.   
   
In all his time in Hekapoo’s dimension, in all the times he and Star had faced legions of evil monsters together, never once had he felt such a mighty need to run as much and far as he did. Something he knew had been coming had arrived, and as much as he tried to fight it, he couldn’t do anything to avoid it.  
   
It was already bad enough his parents insisted on giving him the ‘talk’ again, saying he needed a refresher even though he absolutely did not need it.   
   
“-Dad, I already know how to use one, you don’t have to do the banana demonstration again!”  
   
His mother only tsked at him while his father started peeling the fruit. “You should still get a reminder so we don’t have any more surprise grandkids show up. At least, not without telling us beforehand.”  
   
“Mom!”  
   
During that section of his life, Marco's brain had futilely tried and failed to shut down several times in an attempt to preserve the last remaining shreds of his sanity and dignity.   
   
Oh, how much did Marco wish that was as bad as it got. But they weren’t done yet. At all.  
   
When his brain had finished rebooting, a barrage of questions about his sex life came barreling into him. They asked him about why he hadn’t thought of using a condom, if he’d been with anyone else other than Hekapoo (he hadn't, which he wasn't sure if it relieved his parents or not), and about what exactly his relationship with Hekapoo was. But thankfully and finally, their torrent of inquiries eventually calmed down and finally came to an end with a single question; how was he taking the whole situation?   
   
After deciding to give them the same kind of response he had given to the same question just hours before, Rafael and Angie just smiled.   
   
“I think we understand,” Rafael said. He then put his hand on Marco’s shoulder. “I want you to know we’re here if you need any help.”  
   
Enveloping Marco in a hug with Rafael following suit, Angie spoke. “We still love you and we are already falling in love with our granddaughter. Just remember that you don’t have to go through this alone.”  
   
Marco smiled under their caring embraces. “Thanks dad. Thanks mom. I will.”  
   
Angie, pleased at hearing those words but still wanting to make sure their message got across, then looked him in the eye and took a breath. “Marco, we trust you. We trust that you’ll make the right choices and that you’ll let us know if you ever need us.”   
   
At his determined nod, Marco’s parents grinned, and they simply left without saying another word, leaving Marco to ruminate about their talk on his bed. He lied down, staring up at the ceiling. After a few minutes, he reached his arm over to his drawer, pulling out a picture. It was the same picture that Hekapoo had given him the night before, and Marco’s thoughts soon wandered to the discussion he had with his parents about his and Hekapoo’s relationship.  
   
His parents had thought, at first, that they were lovers, but Marco didn’t think that word felt right. It had a large weight to it, speaking of a promise and bond that neither of them had ever made to the other nor thought about making. Then his mother had asked if it was like having ‘friends with benefits,’ but that phrase felt way too tawdry for what they were, and Marco asked his mother never to use that phrase again.  
   
If he was asked, Marco would easily call Hekapoo a friend, a former rival, and someone he could trust. But truthfully, when he thought about it, he wasn’t actually entirely sure what they were. On some days, they would hang out together at whatever crazy party had caught Hekapoo’s eye, and on some nights, when the mood struck them, they’d share a bed, but they didn’t really think much of it afterwards.   
   
However, most of the time, it was simply spent in their ‘game’ of chase, exchanging friendly and harmless jokes and taunts as Hekapoo weaved in and out of his grasp and as he followed her wherever she went. Marco didn’t know where they stood now, especially with Seraph in the picture, but he knew that he would try to be the best parent he could, and he hoped that Hekapoo would do the same.  
   
Standing up from his bed to get ready for the night, Marco moved to put the picture away-making a mental note to get a frame for it in the meantime-but in his open drawer sat an object that he didn’t recall putting there.   
   
As he took a closer look, his eye simply twitched as his hand sped to its destination on his face. He groaned as he removed his hand, the box of condoms still sitting in front of him.  
   
“Really?”  
   
0000  
   
Wearing a large orange night gown, Seraph had just finished brushing her teeth and getting ready for bed. Her room had been barren the previous day, but now her room was far more full of life. Colorful posters were plastered across the walls, and various knick-knacks from Quest Buy littered her new desk, chairs, and drawers, courtesy of Star.  
   
She was on her stomach, enjoying her new lava lamp from her bed and watching how the blobs inside hypnotically twisted and turned, how they changed size and color as they cast shadows on her walls. When her trance had come to an end, she looked towards a small black frame to her nightstand, which held a worn out picture. It had been a gift from her mother, a picture of Hekapoo with a man wearing a torn leather jacket. Though he looked much older than what he looked like now, the eyes told her exactly who was next to her mother.  
   
Reaching over to her drawer, she pulled out the second oldest gift from her mother, a doll of her favorite princess, and she turned off her light. Crawling under her covers, she looked up at her ceiling, which was now covered with dozens of glow-in-the-dark stars, arranged to resemble the night sky from her mother’s dimension. Memories of her mother taking her outside at night right before going to be to point out the stars, telling her about the constellations, the stories about their stars, and about her father ran through her head. She then cuddled her plush dragon and her doll tightly, the voice of her mother whispering good night to her.  
   
“Good night mom. Good night, Princess Marco.”  
   
She yawned as her eyelids started to feel heavier and heavier. “I wonder if you...know...my…...dad………”   
   
And then, she fell asleep, softly snoring the night away.  
 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Author’s Notes: Hey, so, sorry for how long it’s taken me to update.  Me and my beta have been working out the details for future storylines. Basically, we got a lot of stories planned out and got details worked out. So, hopefully the story will come out more coherent and just overall better.   
> On a personal note I’m looking for a new job, I’m working on an abridge series as writer and editor and some voices. I’m writing my own book and trying to polish it up before having people look it over and get an editor. Plus I’ve gone ahead and written several rough drafts of future chapters. So, kinda been busy.   
> Thank you for all your kind reviews and waiting for me to get my stuff together.  I hope you guys enjoy this chapter.  Also sorry for the late Mother’s Day omake, yeah things didn’t work out there.
> 
>    
> Beta Notes: Yeah, sorry about the late update as well. Figuring and planning out all of the future stories and arcs took quite a long time on its own, and having finals and AP exams the past few months really slowed down my ability to edit, especially with entire sections that we had to all but rewrite and the conversations, but we finally managed to finish this chapter. It’s been really fun helping out with future stories (and exciting to wait for your reactions to what we’ve gotten planned), and thankfully, I’ll be a bit more free this summer to work on this story. Also, we’ve hidden a couple of references in this chapter, especially one to an obscure game series that first came out about a decade ago. Kudos to anyone who can figure out the references!  
>    
> This is IdeaGenerator, signing off.


	4. Chapter 04: School Life

   
“-and that’s about it,” Marco finished. At the moment, he was currently standing in front of Principal Skeeves’ desk, Seraph sitting in a chair next to him and his parents right behind him. It was early in the morning outside, well before school would start. Most people would have been asleep at this time, but thankfully for the Diazes, Principal Skeeves was a very early waker.  
   
“Okaaay,” Principal Skeeves said slowly, looking at the four of them with a narrow pair of eyes, “so let me get this straight. This girl-” he pointed at Seraph, “-is actually your daughter?” now looking at Marco.  
   
He nodded. “Yes.”   
   
“And she’s actually only a month old, but is physically and somewhat-mentally about fourteen years old because of the strange physics of a magical dimension?”  
   
“That’s about it.”   
   
“And you would like me to enroll her into this school?”  
   
“Yes please, if you can,” Rafael replied, a smile on his face.  
   
“And you would like her to start today despite the fact that the semester is well underway?”  
   
“If it is at all possible,” Angie added.  
   
Principal Skeeves hummed for a moment and tapped his fingers together, then he exhaled slowly as he opened one of the drawers in his desk and stuck his hand in. “...Alright, just give me some of your time and we can get her started as soon as possible, ” he said, rummaging around and eventually pulling out a thick stack of paper.  
   
Marco blinked. “Really? That easy?” He was more than a little surprised, especially since he had imagined things would have gone with a lot more difficulty.   
   
Adjusting his glasses, Principal Skeeves looked flatly at Marco. “Normally, I would say no, but considering these...odd circumstances, I think it would be best to help you as much as I can to ensure your continued enrollment at this school stays possible.” He then shrugged. “Plus, you caught me while I was in a good mood. They released a new flavor of ice cream today, and it didn’t disappoint.” Standing up from his chair and offering his hand to Seraph, Principal Skeeves smiled warmly. “Welcome to Echo Creek Academy!”  
   
Underneath his friendly expression, he gave a deep sigh of relief that, after the surprise enrollment of one Star Butterfly earlier in the year, he had made extra copies of the forms from that incident. Without them, it would have been near impossible to get through all the red tape and governmental bureaucracy for creating a whole new file for a such a ‘unique’ individual as a student. And who knew how the Diazes would have reacted if he couldn’t get the newest member of their family into his school.   
   
Honestly, he couldn’t afford to lose Marco Diaz in any way, shape, or form. Echo Creek Academy needed him and his safe-thinking ways to keep up their reputation as the cleanest and safest school in the district-even if he has been slipping on that behalf rather recently, Principal Skeeves thought.   
   
That, and he dreaded seeing the day that Janna Ordonia would stop being distracted by messing with Marco Diaz and try to pull off some of her larger schemes. He almost shuddered imagining the arrival of such a day, but thankfully, he managed to collect himself before any of the Diazes could see it.   
   
And, he thought, I could probably just add her to the Butterfly expenses. Thank goodness they understand why I charge them, unlike some oblivious parents who couldn't understand that, yes, their ‘poor, innocent Jeremy’ would act that way and that he'd-  
   
Principal Skeeves shook those thoughts out of his head as Seraph took his hand with a surprisingly strong grip.  
   
“Thank you so much sir!” she exclaimed, beaming at him as she let go.  
   
Principal Skeeves chuckled as he sat down into his chair. “Oh-ho-ho, and she’s polite too! What’s your name?”  
   
“It’s Seraph. Seraph Celosia Diaz.”  
   
Clicking a pen, Principal Skeeves set the first page of the stack of documents in front of himself. “Okay, how do you spell that?”  
   
“Celosia?” Marco questioned.  
   
“Yeah, mom got it from-“  
   
“A red flower, one with flame-shaped heads, right?” Marco finished for her, thinking back a long time ago. He remembered clearly the day when Hekapoo first brought him to her personal private gardens, planted and full to the brim with those flowers. It was a beautiful sight, all those flowers in bloom and rippling across the field in rich waves of reds, oranges, and yellows in the wind, making it look as if the entire field was a living sea of fire. It wasn't hard to see just why Hekapoo had picked that name for Seraph.  
   
Sometimes, when she would bring him there, they would dance amongst the flowers under the light of her three moons to her favorite rave music, laughing and dancing the nights away, but most of the time, it was nice to simply lay down in the fields together and try to pick out shapes in the clouds above them. The last time he had been there, it had been the night right before he returned to Earth-and, as he realized now, the night they had made Seraph.  
   
Then, shaking him out of his musings, Seraph nodded. “Yeah, it’s mom’s favorite flower.”   
   
“Yes, yes, that’s all well and good,” Skeeves said impatiently, “but seriously, I really do need to know how to spell her name. I can’t stay in this office all day.”  
   
0000  
   
When the bulk of the papers had been completed, Principal Skeeves had printed out Seraph’s schedule and sent her along with Marco to tour her around the school. Meanwhile Rafael and Angie stayed behind to finish their part of the paperwork, as well as making an appointment for Seraph to meet her school counselor soon.   
   
After having introduced Seraph to where she'd have to go for later, Marco was in the middle of walking her to her very first classroom, one that, coincidentally, they both shared. However, as the pair was walking around the school, they had to come to a stop as a swirling portal formed in front of them. A short moment afterwards, Star jumped out as it closed behind her, her back to Marco and Seraph.  
   
“Marco!” she called out, searching around in front of her. “I got your scissors! I’m not too late for school, am I?”   
   
“Uh, Star, we’re right behind you.”  
   
Star whirled around with surprise on her face, a large bag in her arms. “Oh, there you are!” She then held out the bag towards Seraph with a small smile. “I got you a little something from Quest Buy to start off your day!”  
   
Marco narrowed his eyes at her. “Star, what did we talk about last night?” he asked firmly, crossing his arms.   
   
“Oh, what, this?” Star said as she glanced down at the bag in her hands. “Oh, no! This isn’t spoiling her!” she quickly shot back. “I just thought I'd get her something for her first day at school.” Sticking her hand in the bag, she pulled out a backpack shaped like a dragon’s head, scaled green with a cartoonishly floppy red tongue and large googly eyes. “I probably would have gotten it yesterday but I didn’t think you’d need it so soon.” She rolled her eyes and looked to the side, her hands on her hips as she huffed. “Really into making kids go to school in this dimension, I swear...”  
   
“Aw, thanks Star!” Seraph said, taking the backpack from Star. As she was presently wearing a spare and generic red backpack Rafael and Angie had pulled out of Marco's closet, she took it off and tried the new backpack on, adjusting the straps and seeing how it felt on her back. “I love it! I think I’m going to call him Burrito!”  
   
“Huh, that’s really thoughtful of you Star,” Marco praised, his previous concerns quickly forgotten.  
   
Star just waved his comments off with her hand. “Pffft, it was nothing. With how boring school can be, I thought something to cheer her up would be nice.”  
   
While Seraph took off her dragon-pack and starting moving supplies into it from her spare bag, Marco whispered to Star, “Thanks for doing that for her.”  
   
“No problem,” she whispered right back. Then, she took out a pair of scissors and put them in Marco's outstretched hand. “And thanks for letting me borrow these.”  
   
“You're welcome,” he said, then he slowly raised his eyebrow at her. “As long as you tell me first before you use them next time for ‘shopping,’ okay?”   
   
Star just responded with a sheepish grin. “Kay Marco. Now let's go!” And with that, she grabbed his hand and was off with a spring in her step, pulling him along for the ride.   
   
Honestly, Marco didn’t mind Star borrowing his scissors all that much-they were friends after all, and he was originally trying to get back ‘Star’s’ pair in the first place, though he really should have figured that of course Pony Head would do something like that. It was just that, after working so long and hard for them, it made him anxious whenever he considered the possibility that he could've lost his scissors, especially with how much trust Hekapoo was placing on him to use them responsibly.   
   
But though he was still a little bit angry about Star borrowing his scissors for a trip to Quest Buy without telling him-and was still getting used to actually having a pair after years traveling without them-he had faith that she would bring them back safe and sound.   
   
As the trio started to head off for class again, three familiar faces that had been waiting for them came up to them; Janna, Alfonzo, and Ferguson. The former had a Cheshire grin on her face, smug like a cat that ate a canary. She greeted Marco with a half-lidded stare, her tone slow and flirty. “Oh hello, daddy. Nice to see you here.”   
   
Marco just pinched the bridge of his nose and sighed. “Please don’t call me that again.”  
   
“I make no such promises,” Janna teased. “You just make things too easy.”   
   
On the other side of things, Alfonzo and Ferguson took the chance to introduce themselves properly to Seraph.   
   
“Hello, I’m Alfonzo! I’m a friend of your dad. If you need anything, don’t be afraid to ask me,” Alfonzo said warmly, adjusting his glasses.   
   
Meanwhile, Ferguson puffed-or tried to puff-out his chest and proudly gave Seraph his best smile. “You can just call me Ferguson, or just Ferg if you like.” He then shifted his eyes back and forth as he shuffled up to her conspiratorially. “Also, you think you can convince Star to turn me and Alfonzo back into a centaur?”  
   
Seraph slowly leaned backwards with an unsure smile on her face. “Well, I, uh…I-I guess I can try, Justferg?”   
   
However, at that moment, the warning bell rang, signifying a few minutes were left before the start of class. “Looks like we should start going now,” Marco alerted the group, which now started to slowly make its way towards the classroom.    
   
While they were walking, Janna put her arm around Seraph’s shoulder, surprising the young girl with the sudden contact. “Okay, here’s a tip for your first day of school: don’t show any weakness. The first chance you get, punch the toughest person you see as hard as you can. Show everyone you won’t be pushed around.”  
   
Seraph just blinked at her confusedly. “...but wouldn't that be my dad?”  
   
“No, Janna, just...Just no.” Marco said, exasperated. “Nobody is punching anyone.”  
   
Janna just snickered as Marco rolled his eyes and grumbled under his breath. “I definitely didn't come back for this.” After shaking his head, he turned to Seraph, giving her a smile. “Just try to be friendly and be yourself, and everything going to be just fine. I’m sure they're going to love you. ”  
   
Hopefully, that is.   
   
0000  
   
As the first class had already settled into their seats and the warning bell several minutes ago, Miss Skullnick had stopped the late group of friends at the door, only letting everyone except the Diazes into the classroom.   
   
“Considering the situation,” Miss Skullnick began, “I think it might be best if we tell everyone the truth about you, Seraph. This way, we can deal with answering most of the questions ahead of time.” She then crossed her arms, a sympathetic tone entering her voice. “And don't worry Marco. As long I’m here, I’ll keep things from getting out of control.”  
   
Marco thought about it, then nodded. “Yeah, I guess it’s for the better if we do that.” If Janna hadn’t already told everyone else already, they were gonna find out Seraph was his daughter sooner or later, so it made sense to explain the truth before the rumor mill could get its hands on it.   
   
As Miss Skullnick then stepped through the classroom door, Marco stayed back for a moment to talk to Seraph.  
   
“So, are you nervous?”  
   
“Uh, a little bit,” Seraph admitted, peeking into the room. It hadn't really sunk in for her yet, but after seeing all the people in the classroom, people that very likely knew her father and were complete strangers to her, she was starting to feel a bit apprehensive at the prospect of standing up in front of them all.   
   
“Well, it is your first day at school. Everyone gets nervous on their first day, but don’t worry, Star and I are here for you. And you can always count on my friends for help-” he paused for a moment, “-okay, maybe not Janna all the time, but she's okay, you can trust her.” His brows furrowed. “...I think.”  
   
Then, out of the corner of his eye, he caught sight of motion through the window in the classroom door. Shifting his eyes over, he could see Miss Skullnick gesturing at him, inviting him to come in and face everyone.   
   
“Well, here goes nothing.” Putting his hand on the doorknob, he turned one last time towards Seraph. “Just wait a bit to come in. We'll introduce you to everyone first.”  
   
Opening the door, he was greeted with the sound of the usual chatter one could expect from a class of high schoolers; full of the newest trends and gossip about national and school celebrities. As soon as the door closed behind him, Miss Skullnick exclaimed over the noise, “Everyone be quiet!”   
   
After a few moments of waiting for the volume to die down, she started talking again, this time in a quieter tone. “Okay, class, we’ve got a new student today, so everyone be nice and welcoming for…for...” Miss Skullnick sighed and turned towards Marco. “Just bring her in Marco.”  
   
The class was silent as everyone looked at him as he opened the door and let Seraph in. Some stared at the horns poking out of her hair, others glanced at her heels-slash-boots combo, but all of them could notice the similarities between her and Marco, especially their choice of hoodies.  
   
“Go ahead and introduce yourself.” Miss Skullnick gestured towards Seraph with her hand as faint murmurs started being traded around the room. Seraph was rooted to the spot for a moment, not sure what to say until she saw Star and Janna at the back of the room, waving at her and giving her the thumbs-up respectively. Feeling a bit better knowing she had their support, she looked at Marco, who just gave her a smile and a faint nod.   
   
Encouraged, Seraph gave a small wave to the class. “Oh, uh, hello,” she said timidly. “My name’s Seraph Diaz and I just moved here, so it's nice to meet you all.”  
   
Marco opened his mouth to speak when someone in the back suddenly cut him off. “So, like, are you Marco’s cousin or something?”  
   
Unfortunately, for his desire to ease the class into an explanation, Seraph immediately responded to the question. “Actually, he’s my dad.”  
   
The class fell dead silent as the words began to sink in. As Marco physically braced himself for the inevitable outburst, Miss Skullnick, used to dealing with such things in her long career of teaching, started to count down with her fingers. “Five, four, thre-“  
   
“WHAT?!” nearly everyone shouted, the force of their shout almost bowling Seraph over.  
   
“Uh oh,” the teacher said, her eyes widening at the premature detonation, “that’s not good.”  
   
With the classroom erupting into a maelstrom of questions and out of their seats, Seraph couldn’t help but flinch and shrink back at the noise. Seeing her reaction, Marco jumped in front of her, his arms stretched out as if trying to protect her from the words. “Okay! Everyone, please, just calm down!” However, his attempt at quieting the class just caused the questions to come even faster, now directed at both him and Seraph instead of just the poor girl.   
   
As he stood there, trying vainly to get the class to be quiet again, he could barely hear the shouts of Miss Skullnick, trying and failing to do the same, over everyone else. Then, from behind him, he felt someone grab the back of his hoodie. Turning his head back, he came face to face with Seraph clutching onto him for safety, overwhelmed and frozen by the commotion going on around her.   
   
Facing back towards the rest of the classroom, his eyes narrowed then closed as he shifted his jaw. His chest swelled and contracted several times, air flowing through his nose and out his mouth as almost every sound disappeared from his ears, leaving only the beat of his heart as it slowed and steadied. Opening his eyes, he stared at the scene of chaos unfolding in front of him, Miss Skullnick struggling to be noticed and obeyed despite her intimidating size while his friends were swallowed up by the frenzy.   
   
Then, his mouth opened.  
   
“Everyone, settle down! Now!”  
   
And with that, the class fell silent once more. Not even Brittney, the biggest gossip in the school, gave a peep as the seconds ticked by.   
   
“I get that you all have a lot of questions, but let me make a few things clear before you ask them.” 

Slowly, everyone sat back down in their seats. Even Miss Skullnick found herself sitting back at her desk. Despite looking no older than the rest of them and being dressed in a very unassuming set of clothes, he easily commanded all of their attention.   
   
Marco’s head turned slowly, surveying the room around him. “Yes, I have a kid. Yes, she’s coming to school here. Now, if you have any questions, one at a time please.”   
   
A moment passed, then his eyes flicked over to the back of the room, a hand tentatively raising upwards in his sight. “Yes?”  
   
The person who had raised his hand shifted in his seat as the whole class turned to look at him, realizing that everyone’s eyes were now on him. Nervously and slowly, he put down his hand. “So, uh, like, um...h-how? How did you have a kid?”  
   
Marco looked at him, then he nodded sharply. “It's...complicated, but I'll do my best to explain. Just a few weeks ago, I came back to Earth from having spent several years in another dimension.” At the outbursts that arose from the class, asking how that even worked, he held out his hands in a placating manner. “Yes, I know that it may be hard to believe or wrap your head around, but that's just how time works there. A minute here equals two years there.”   
   
He then stared off into the distance, captivated by something unseen by anyone else. “I had gotten stuck there, unable to return to Earth, so I went chasing after a way to get back for all of those years.” His tone became nostalgic, lost in memories of a time not too long ago. “I traveled across many worlds, meeting and making many friends along the way. Heck,” he said, a proud grin taking over his face, “I even fought hordes of evil creatures, tamed a wild dragon-cycle, and even earned my own pair of dimensional scissors!”   
   
“But how did you have a kid then?” a voice said, interrupting his thoughts.  
   
Marco blinked, having been snapped out of his reverie, then he shook his head amicably. “Oh, oh yeah. Sorry about that, I got a bit sidetracked there. So anyways, while I was there, I met someone named Hekapoo, the fastest and the most fiery girl I’ve ever met,” he said with a wave of his hand and a light chuckle. “It took me years just to catch up to her, though there were a few times when I managed to get this close to her.” He emphasized the distance with his fingers and a squint, but when he opened his eyes to look back towards the room, they fell onto the wincing, hurt face of one Jackie Lynn Thomas.  
   
Suddenly finding it hard to speak, Marco couldn't help but notice all the stares of the people surrounding him, watching him, judging him. Only now realizing just what it was that he said and who he said it to, he tried to find within himself the strange confidence that had just filled him and given him a voice, but found nothing left. Opening and closing his mouth like a fish, he stood there at the front of the class with very little to say in mind, and it was as if a switch had been flipped in everyone.   
   
No longer were they looking at someone both paradoxically young and not, but Marco Diaz, the awkward teenager. Grasping at anything he could do to get out of this situation, he blurted out the first thought that came to mind. “Sothat’swhyyouuseprotectionkidsokaythankyouI’mjustgoingtositdownnow.” And with that, his chair screeched underneath him. Seraph hesitatingly followed suit a few seats over as he tried to face forward and ignore everyone behind him, especially a certain girl with a seashell necklace.  
   
Miss Skullnick just facepalmed at the sad display, the loud sound gathering the room’s attention and regaining some control over the room. “Alright class, now that’s over, it’s time to get back to class. Today’s announcements are...”  
   
While Marco put his face into his hands with a groan, heavy thoughts swirling around in his mind as the lecture went on, someone tapped his shoulder. Confused, he froze, unsure if he really felt that until they tapped him again. Glancing backwards, he saw that it was Justin, the captain of the football team and apparently now his first interrogator of the week. “What?” he tersely whispered, hoping Miss Skullnick wouldn’t notice.  
   
“So wait, you and Star didn't have a kid?”  
   
Whatever he expected Justin to say, that was not it. Half-formed words died in his mouth as his brain tried to find the logistics behind that question. “...What.” He scrunched his brow and blinked his eyes several times, unable to come to a conclusion of any kind. “Where’d you get that?”  
   
Justin looked at him strangely. “But I thought…” He paused, then shook his head. “Actually, nevermind.”  
   
“Okaaay. Right.” As he looked away, Marco tried to focus back onto the lesson on the board, but he couldn’t help but be distracted by the sound of a sigh coming from a certain direction, one he was afraid to look. Turning his head, he caught a flash of movement in the corner of his eye, the shifting of blonde and blue curls of hair. With a heavy weight in his gut, he spotted Jackie, who was now trying to avoid making eye contact with him.   
   
However, as she fidgeted with her hands, her eyes slowly started to swivel towards his own with a sad frown. Marco almost didn’t catch what she said as she spoke so softly that it almost seemed like a whisper.   
   
“We need to talk later. After school.”  
   
He processed her words, then he nodded firmly. Hopefully Seraph would be fine with going home with Star by then.  
   
0000  
   
Unfortunately, for his state of mind, it felt as though each one of his classes passed by in an instant, with Jackie’s deadline looming over him like an overbearing shadow. The only thing that could take his mind off worrying about the upcoming meeting was worrying about how Seraph’s first day at school would go. As he couldn’t be there to keep watch over her for every one of her classes, the thought of having to let her go off and be by herself worried him. Thankfully, after homeroom, she had math with Miss Skullnick, so he didn’t have to worry too much about that period, and they both shared the next class, history.   
   
Considering where she was raised and for how long, Marco wasn’t that surprised by how often Seraph would ask for clarifications on every single detail of history. At least their teacher was understanding of the situation, though he could only hope the other teachers would be too as well. After all, he wouldn’t see her for several more periods until lunchtime.  
   
But as he walked down the halls towards the cafeteria, Marco couldn’t help but feel the stares and the whispers of conversations piling up on his back on the way to lunch, overshadowing his other concerns. He tried his best to ignore them, but it only seemed to make them stand out even more.  
   
“Those horns on her head are real? I thought Star gave them to her as a mom-gift or something.”  
   
“Waaah! My Starco fan fiction is ruined now!”  
   
“I thought Marco was dating Star.”  
   
“You sure it wasn’t Janna? I thought that they just had their own way of messing around with each other.”  
   
“No, he’s been dating Jackie for a while now. They got together after the dance.”  
   
“Wha-Really?! No way! He had a kid with someone else while he was dating her? Heh, guess he really isn't that safe.”  
   
“I wish I was dating him. Sigh, he’s such a bad boy.”  
   
Marco could only wince at the reminder of his upcoming talk, and the irony of that last part was not lost on him. He pulled the hood of his jacket over his head and gritted his teeth, attempting to block out the mutterings in vain, but their words still got through the red fabric and to him.  
   
“Wait, you’re saying the Marco Diaz has a kid? You’d think the safety kid would know to use protection.”  
   
“Yeah, I know, right? And the thing is, she’s, like, a teenager already even though she’s only a month old.”  
   
“How does that even work?”  
   
“Magic? I don’t know, I got confused when she explained it to me.”  
   
“I think it’s because her mom’s a demon or something.”  
   
“A demon?”  
   
“Well, I mean, I think she’s one. I mean, she’s got horns and fangs and everything, kind of like that guy that invited Star to some ball or whatever a while ago. She’s also super pale, but she’s heck-of cute. I can see why he’d go for her instead of Jackie.”  
   
“How do you know that?”  
   
“Picture. Janna showed it to me for five bucks. She was there when the mom dropped his kid off at his house apparently. Still can’t believe that that’s what happened between them.”  
   
“Heard the new girl almost burned down the school. That would've been so awesome if she did.”  
   
Marco rubbed his temples with his fingers, deeply wishing it wouldn't be useless to talk to Janna about what should be kept priva-   
   
He froze in the middle of the hallway, eyes wide open. Wait, what was that last part?   
   
But before he could fully process what he just heard, he felt a tug on his sleeve, and turned to see found Seraph looking at him, a concerned-and somewhat guilty, a small part of his mind noted-expression on her face. “You okay, dad?” she asked. “You look like a statue.”  
   
“Yeah, yeah, just...zoned out for a bit.” Marco absentmindedly shook his head and pulled down his hood. “So, uh, did anything interesting happen for you today?” he said dazedly, almost on instinct, but then he noticed Seraph bite her lip and struggle to avoid his gaze. The faint scent of burnt something emanating from her hair reached his nose, causing it to wrinkle slightly. Taking a closer look, he could see small flecks of multi-colored soot sticking to her hoodie.  
   
“Did something happen? Are you okay?!” he exclaimed, his voice full of worry as he put his hands on her shoulders, his eyes widening.   
   
“I, uh, um…I might have started a fire last period?” Seraph almost asked, her hands twisting around each other. An uneasy smile crossed her face for a moment before it dropped down into a grimace.  
   
“A fire? What happened?”   
   
“Well, uh, um...” Seraph fumbled around for words, unsure how to explain things, but then a certain macabre-loving teenager popped up to rescue her.  
   
“Pottery,” Janna said loudly from behind Marco, the sound so uncomfortably close he gave out a yell, reflexively spinning around and almost karate-kicking her in the chest. Stopping his foot just before it could connect, he slowly put it down as his heart beat on, full of adrenaline as well-practiced fighting techniques and strategies eventually started to evaporate from his mind.   
   
Inwardly, he was mildly impressed at the near complete lack of reaction or flinching on Janna’s part, though his concerns and questions for her took precedence as a disapproving frown on his face and a pair of crossed arms. “...So, can you tell me what happened?”  
   
“Well, as long you're done putting on a show, sure!” She smirked at him as he rolled his eyes. “Your ‘baby girl’ tried to make a clay pot and cook it with her fire powers, and she set an entire table on fire instead. It was awesome!” Her tone became more musing, her fingers rubbing her chin in thought. “Actually, that gives me an idea…” She snapped her fingers. “Hey Seraph, in art class tomorrow, think you could help me wi-”  
   
“No Janna, you can’t ask her to help you out with any of your ‘projects.” As Janna snickered in response, Marco turned to Seraph, who wilted under his inquiring gaze. “Seraph, is that true?”  
   
Regretfully, she nodded. “...Yes.”  She then looked up pleadingly at him. “But it was an accident! The teacher told me that you make pottery by heating clay to high temperatures. I didn't know she didn't have fire-proof tables like mom does or that you have to do it in a kilt-thing!”   
   
Marco closed his eyes. “Did anyone get hurt?” he asked, his voice toneless, impossible to decipher.   
   
“...N-no?”   
   
He took a deep breath through his nostrils, then he opened his eyes and gave her a gentle look. “Then that's all that really matters in the end, Seraph.”  
   
She blinked owlishly. “Y-you're...you're not mad at me?” she asked uncertainly.  
   
Now it was his turn to scrunch up his eyebrows. “Mad at yo-No! Seraph, I'm not mad at you!” He took her by the shoulders, surprising her with the contact. “Sure, I am a little disappointed that it happened in the first place, but I can't blame you for not knowing to be careful with your pyrokinesis here on your first day at school, and at least nobody got seriously hurt.” His back straightened as his eyebrow raised. “Now, I hope you’ve learned your lesson about how flammable objects can be, right?”  
   
She nodded determinedly. “Right! I'll be more careful next time!”  
   
Marco gave a sigh of content, the tension in the air dissipating. His face then took on a joking expression as the edge of his lip curled. “Besides, that's nothing compared to Star’s first week at school. She almost burned down the entire school by accident. Three times. ” At her disbelieving stare, he could only chuckle, shaking his head. “Yep, that’s what happened. Ah, those were good times,” Then, as discreetly as possible, he leaned over to Janna, who'd been watching the whole scene with the same smirk as usual. “So, how much for the damages?”  
   
“About six hundred and fifty dollars, but I’m sure you can get a certain ‘princess’ to pay for them,” she said with a wink and a grin. She stayed like that for several moments, as if expecting something to happen.   
   
Marco shifted his eyes from side to side, confused at her sudden bout of silence. “...Uh, is that it?” He shrugged nonchalantly. “Eh, guess I’ll just tell the company to send her the check this month,” he said, more to himself.   
   
At this, Janna gave him a flat stare and folded her arms. “Ugh, you’re no fun.” Then, she lazily saluted off to him and Seraph, her smirk restored as she started to walk away. “Well, looks like I'll be seeing you later when you need this back,” she said, waving an orange pouch with a zipper at him.   
   
Marco’s hand flew to his waist, but it found nothing. “Janna!” he exclaimed, an annoyed expression on his face.   
   
Now at a sprint, her cackles echoed down the hall. “You can scold me later, daddy!”   
   
“JANNA!”   
   
Deciding it was not worth the effort to chase her down even though it would have been a cakewalk compared to Hekapoo, Marco grumbled while Seraph just stood next to him, confused at what happened. “Good thing I can make another at home.” Then, he turned to Seraph and tried to clear his mind. “...So, how was the rest of your day?”  
   
“It’s been going great!” Seraph said excitedly. “I got to learn about how to make stuff with clay in art, and I can’t wait to show mom what I can make soon! And PE is really fun! I made a couple of friends there, and we got to play a game called ‘bat-min-ton,’ though I don’t get why there aren’t any actual bats involved, and tomorrow we’re going to be running laps around the football field!”   
   
However, her mood took a flip as she crossed her arms, a look of exasperation coming over her. “Though the math homework is so boring! I’m not even halfway and I still need a lot more paper for it!”  
   
Marco chuckled loudly at her frustrated, adorable pout. “Heh, you wouldn’t be the first to feel that way about math class. Now come on, let’s go!” he said with a wave of his hand, his original purpose for coming down this hallway finally remembered. “If we get to the cafeteria in time, there may still be some cake left!”   
   
0000  
   
Thankfully, the cafeteria wasn’t that far away, so they arrived a few minutes before the cake ran out and the end of lunch. Unfortunately, for Seraph’s next class, Biology, she had to part ways with Marco once more to his regret, but for his sake, at least it was the last class she would have to do so. And to make up for the separation, it was a subject that she found really interesting, just like history-the history of Earth, that is.   
   
Having grown up in another dimension and on the stories about her father, Seraph was excited to learn more about the planet he came from, but she did feel a little saddened when her teacher took the strange old book she found on the floor from her at the end of class. Though it was missing quite a number of pages and was full of unfamiliar words, it had a lot of characters with bizarre names in it, like Mr. Young, Werner, and Erwin, though she couldn’t help but write about some of the things they did that exactly didn’t make sense to her at times. However, her mood perked up at the sight of her father in her next and second-to-last class, Spanish.   
   
Marco, in turn, was also filled with happiness when he saw Seraph walk in, a feeling of excitement welling up at the thought of being able to hold a full conversation with her in Spanish some day in the future. Although his knowledge of the language had been stunted for a long time, teaching Hekapoo the basics of his language had helped keep the information fresh in his mind, and it soon be came apparent to him that she had done the same with Seraph. Even though her Spanish wasn’t the best, it pleased him immensely that she was able to keep up with the rest of the class and teacher without too much trouble.  
   
To top off the end of their day, Marco and Seraph shared a class of English together. Despite being someone with a limited exposure to the field of literature, Seraph dove right into the middle of things with a surprising amount of energy. She had marvelled at the thought of reading stories of times from long, long ago and tales of made-up worlds, and she had even started packing her bag with books before Marco introduced her to the concept of libraries. With her enthusiasm to begin reading, he couldn’t help but wonder what her reaction would be to hearing that her grandmother was a poetry teacher.  
   
With all of the textbooks Seraph ended up needing at the end of the day, Marco was thankful that Star liked to shop at Quest Buy so often, as he had been surprised at the amount of foresight put into her gift-backpack for Seraph. Specially charmed to be bigger on the inside and always feel as light as a feather no matter the actual weight of its contents, it was perfect for any school-related situation.   
   
After checking to make sure Seraph had all her books and supplies with her, Marco zipped up her backpack. “You sure you have enough paper?” he asked jokingly, handing the bag to her. “It looks like you took several packs from the supply tables in here.”  
   
“Yeah, I'm sure,” she said. “I just didn't want to run of paper out for homework.”  
   
Marco laughed heartily. “With that much paper, I don't think you'll be running out ‘til college.” Letting out a deep breath, he smiled contently, then he looked her straight in the eye, a slightly more serious look on his face. “When we get home, don’t forget to finish all your homework later, okay?” Marco asked authoritatively, to which Seraph nodded.   
   
“Ugh,” Janna groaned with a roll of her eyes, “why’d you have to become such a stick in the mud? Loosen up on the poor kid already.” Then, she turned to Star, who had just finished texting Pony Head for the day, and a glint shone in her eye. “Hey Star, got any more of those backpacks? I’ve got an idea.”  
   
“Oh sure! They were on sale and I got this…”  
   
Marco wanted to dissuade both of them from whatever it was that Janna had come up with, but then, whatever they were saying faded into white noise as his eyes wandered beyond the pair of troublemakers. Far off in the distance, he spotted the school flagpole, and at its base stood Jackie, waiting.  
   
“Hey, uh, Star, can you take Seraph home for me today? There’s something I need to do, and I’m not sure how long it’ll take,” he said, absentmindedly holding out his scissors towards the princess.  
   
Star smiled at him brightly as she took them from his hand. “Oh, sure thing Marco! You can count on me!”   
   
“Wait, what’s happeni-” Seraph tried to ask, only to be interrupted as Star grabbed her hand and pulled her through a portal.   
   
“So, now that we’re alone, still want your little belt bag Marco?” Janna asked, waggling her eyebrows. “You can have it back if you give me a little ‘something’ in retur-”  
   
Marco strolled past her without even looking at her, cutting her off. “No thanks Janna, I don’t need it that much.”   
   
“Awww,” she said, though she didn’t actually sound that disappointed. “Well, looks like I get to keep this. See ya!” And with that, she was off, going down the street behind him.  
   
After a quick check of his surroundings, he kept walking to the flagpole, glad to see the courtyard almost completely devoid of people, everyone else having either gone home or to whatever after-school activities they were a part of. It wouldn’t do to have people listening in on their conversation.  
   
It was a short walk, and within several moments, he finally reached the flagpole. “Hey,” he said.  
   
“Hey,” came the reply, “you came.”  
   
A pregnant pause hung in the air.  
   
“I’m sorry if I made you angry with me.”   
   
Jackie sighed, brushing her bangs out of her eyes. “I’m not angry at you, I just...I just-” She turned away from Marco with a soft frown on her face. “You...” Jackie trailed off, then a deep sigh escaped her lips. She turned her head to look at him in the eye. “Can you...can you just...just please, help me understand. What happened between you and Hekapoo?”  
   
Marco pursed his lips, then rubbed the back of his neck slowly. “I...I don’t know what to say.”  
   
Another pause.  
   
“...How did it start? How did you two become so...so close?”  
   
Marco leaned against the pole and stared off into the distance. “...I’m...not sure. It just...happened.” A slight crease formed itself between his eyebrows. “We just started talking someday during my trial, somewhere in between trying to learn how to survive in the wild and going on adventures across the multiverse.”  
   
A flash of confusion crossed Jackie’s face. “Wait, ‘trying to learn how to survive in the wild?”  
   
“Yeah-I mean, back at the beginning, it wasn’t like I was a master tracker or knew how to make supplies or anything. I spent a lot of the first days just figuring out how to catch food and find shelter, but I got better at it eventually,” he said nonchalantly, waving his hand in the air.   
   
Her eyes widened in concern, her voice gaining a horrified tone. “So wait, she just left you there without food or supplies to die in the wild?!”  
   
“What?! ” Marco’s head shook, a shocked expression on his face. “No! She wouldn’t do that!”  
   
Jackie’s face turned confused, befuddled. Her eyes looked for an answer in the air in front of her. “So then...then what did she do?”   
   
He held out his hands in front of him, trying to soothe her concerns. “Jackie, Hekapoo’s not like that. Whenever I got hurt or nearly starved to death, she would always give me supplies to help me survive.” He gestured with his hand, searching for words. “...Look, her trials aren’t meant to be easy, but they’re not that unfair! I mean, heck, if anything, she could’ve done a whole lot worse to me considering that, back then, she thought I stole her personal pair of dimensional scissors, and because I actually did abuse them. She saved my life. Multiple times. I know I can trust her with anything...and so can you.” His breath was heavy now, and he stared at Jackie, his eyes pleading for her to believe him.   
   
She looked at him with an unreadable expression, then she closed her eyes and tilted her head forward, casting her face into shadow. “...So, I guess you just forgot about me instead, right?” she asked softly.  
   
“No, Jackie, I didn’t forget you, it’s just…” Marco sighed and placed his back against the flagpole, sliding down until he felt the ground beneath him. Next to him, he felt the displacement of air as she sat down as well. “...Jackie, I’ve been away for sixteen years. That’s longer than I had a crush on you, longer than I’ve ever lived on Earth.”  
   
Pulling up his knees to his chest, Marco stared down the road running in front of the school, looking to where it blended into the edge of the horizon. “I got used to the idea that I might never see you, Star, or my parents for a long time, over a decade ago. I’d thought that, by the time I would’ve eventually gotten back home, everyone would’ve moved on with their lives already, so I moved on as well. Star would’ve become queen, Janna probably would’ve been on the run from the cops, and you would’ve found someone else to be happy with, someone who could actually be there for you and get to know you more than I ever did.”  
   
Jackie gently put her hand on his shoulder. “Marco, you know I wouldn’t do that-”  
   
“Even when you’d be in college or have a job, waiting for someone you only dated for a few weeks in high school and went missing years ago? Someone who never really got to truly know the real you, to see if they actually had something more than just a childhood crush on you?”   
   
Jackie opened her mouth, but only silence came out. Closing her mouth, she looked to the side, then back at him, troubled by her thoughts. “...Then what about the past few weeks? Why’d you keep taking me out if you moved on already?”  
   
Marco was silent for a moment, unsure how to respond. Then, a memory from the day before came to him, the hours he spent talking with Mr. Candle running through his mind. “...I did that because, when I came back to Earth like this-” he gestured at his body, “-I felt like I had to go back to being Marco Diaz the ‘safe kid’ again, even if I didn't fully remember or know how to be him anymore.” Marco stared at his hands, picking out the scars-or lack thereof-he’d earned over the years. He rubbed his fingers together, feeling the sensation of how unfamiliarly smooth they were, then took a deep breath. “...The past couple of weeks, I’ve been letting who I used to be define should be instead of who I am now. I'm sorry if I led you on like that, I didn't mean to.”  
   
“Marco,” Jackie said, a perturbed tone in her voice.  
   
“It is true though, Jackie. I mean-” he rubbed his forehead with his hand, “-I did enjoy the time we hung out together, I just...it just didn't feel right for me, you know, even when I told myself I did.”  
   
“...oh,” Jackie said quietly, though not in response to him. “...Was it...is that because you and Hekapoo…hooked up while you were gone?” she asked, looking at him with a questioning expression.   
   
“What?” Marco did a double take at that. “Hooked up?” He screwed up his face. “No, no, we’re not like that. We’re friends, we just…” he trailed off, unable to find the right words to explain properly.  
   
“You two were just...casual?” Jackie finished for him.  
   
“I mean...I guess you can it that?” He hesitatingly shrugged his shoulders. “We never really got that serious with each other, and we’re really just more friends than anything.”  
   
“So you never really thought you’d get her pregnant?” Jackie raised an eyebrow at him. “I’m surprised you didn’t use protection or anything. It doesn’t exactly sound like something you’d do.”  
   
Marco rubbed the back of his neck. “Well, I mean, I just didn't think that it would ever happen between us. Heck, I didn’t even know it could happen until a few days ago, and I'm still trying to figure it out!” Throwing up his hands in the air at that last part, he let them drop down to the ground by his.    
   
They shared a moment at the bottom of the flagpole, letting a cool breeze wash over them in silence. One of Marco’s hands laid on the ground, splayed wide open, while Jackie’s lingered nearby, tentatively inching forward and backing up before it returned it its owner’s lap.   
   
Even though he didn’t turn to look at her or move at all, Jackie could tell Marco had something to say. “...You know, I never meant to hurt you. I completely understand if you want to-“  
   
“Break up with you?” Jackie tilted her head back until she could feel the metal of the flagpole on the back of her head. “...Yeah...it might be for the best.” She sat there for a second, thinking, then she turned to him, a hopeful look on her face. “We can still be friends, right?”   
   
“Wha-Of course we can!” he said, wondering why she'd even need to ask such a thing.   
   
She kept her eyes on him for a few seconds, then she shook her head with a small smile and chuckle. “I should've known,” she whispered to herself. Then, with a grunt, she stood up and stretched her limbs. “Geez, that pole is uncomfortable.” As she rubbed her back with a hand, Marco got up from the ground next to her and stretched as well. Pulling out her skateboard, she set it on the sidewalk and placed her foot on top. “See you later, Marco,” she said, looking at him with a smile.   
   
“See you late-”   
   
However, Marco’s farewell was cut short as he stood there, his eyes wide as he slowly raised his hand to his cheek. The sound of skateboard wheels grew faint as he watched Jackie ride away with her back to him, the feeling of lips still lingering where his fingers touched.  
   
His mind whirled for what seemed like an eternity, stuck trying to figure out what just happened, until he felt a hand on his shoulder.   
   
“You okay man?” Ferguson asked from his right, his tone inquiring. Alfonzo stood next to Ferguson, his face displaying concern. “That looked rough.”  
   
“I’m...I’m okay,” Marco said, unfocused. He blinked once, then shook his head. “I’m fine, really.”   
   
Ferguson glanced over to Alfonzo, who could only give an uncertain shrug in return, and looked back at Marco with a smile. “If you ever need someone to talk with about girl problems, we’re here for you.”   
   
Marco tried to halfheartedly grin at the duo, but it gradually dropped into a confused look. “That’s, uh...that's very nice of you guys...but it’s not exactly like you guys have a lot of experience with girls.”  
   
Alfonzo put his hands on his hips and huffed defiantly, readjusting his glasses with a finger. “Well, I’m the only one of us that actually got married before, remember?”  
   
Marco stared at him uncomprehendingly, his eyebrows furrowed in disbelief. “Wait, you got married?”  
   
“Yeah, in Pixtopia with the Pixie Empress!” Ferguson chimed in, oblivious to Marco’s confusion and struggle to remember. “And while we are on the subject, I want you to settle something for me. Was it inappropriate of him to marry my ex-fiancee?”  
   
“Ferguson, we talked about this already! You broke up with her in the first place, so it’s not!” Alfonzo argued, exasperated.  
   
“Well, you divorced her! I would have never done such a thing to such a pretty lady!”  
   
“I didn’t divorce her, she divorced me!” He turned his  And I’ll let you know we’re still on good speaking terms with each other!”  
   
Marco looked between the two of them with a unbelieving stare, a long-forgotten memory  finally coming back to him. “Wait a minute...Ferguson, why are you even arguing about that? She wanted to eat you!”  
   
“Yeah, so?” Ferguson lifted his nose into the air haughtily. “That means she actually loved me first!”   
   
Yep, that’s the Alfonzo and Ferguson I remember, Marco thought to himself as his palm met his face with a groan, the two continuing to bicker on in front of him about the inane topic.   
   
0000  
   
By the time Marco got home, the sun was low and casting vibrant colors across the sky, and he arrived to hear the sound of laughter ringing through the front door. Turning the knob, he was greeted with the sight of Seraph being horribly assaulted by the many tongues of laser puppies on the living room floor, flailing about at the ‘attacks.’ Through her laughs, Seraph struggled to speak. “Stop tha-haha! It ti-ti-ahaha-ckles!”  
   
Unfortunately for her, Star had another idea. She picked up one of the pups and started to talk in a silly manner, almost as if she was imitating a whale. “No, you’re too tasty to stop. Yum yum!” And with that, Star brought the pup closer to Seraph’s face, causing another round of belly laughs to erupt as it licked her nose.  
   
At seeing this, Marco couldn’t help but join in with the laughter, his worries forgotten as the puppies found a new target for their ‘kisses.’ Rolling around on the floor with Seraph, it felt as though a large knot had finally become untied in his gut. Even after the puppies were finished giving their affection, he lay on the floor with a large, tired smile.  
   
This is nice.  
   
0000  
   
The next day at school, Marco stretched in his seat as the bell rang for lunch and let out a yawn, feeling his bones pop with the movements. Smacking his lips, he was swept along with the frenzy of students and out into the hallway. After having the first real deep sleep in weeks last night, his body still felt its aftereffects, and he struggled to keep himself from falling back into such bliss even with all the energy he had.  
   
Not in any particular hurry to get to the cafeteria, the loudness of the halls grew quieter as he walked, instead of running like the others. Because of this, he easily and clearly heard a familiar pair of stomps echoing from behind him. Even without his hearing, he would have been able to tell that it was Miss Skullnick simply by the strength behind her footsteps, rocking the ground underneath his feet.  
   
Judging from how fast the volume of her steps increased and how quick they were, Marco eyes widened as he made to move to the side, sleepiness forgotten at the threat of being in the path of a troll running at full speed. But then, she called out to him. “Marco! I need to talk to you!”  
   
For a second, Marco’s mind ran through the events of the day, trying to remember if there was anything he could’ve gotten into trouble for, but his thoughts were interrupted as she came to a stop in front of him, huffing on her knees. Carrying a large stack of paper underneath her arm half as tall as Marco himself, she gave him an expression of wide-eyed shock. “It’s about Seraph.”  
   
“What?! Is something wrong?” Immediately, a ball of fear started to form in his gut.   
   
“No, there’s nothing wrong, just-just look at this!” she exclaimed.   
   
She held out the stack of paper towards Marco, who instinctively held out his own arms and nearly fell forward at the sudden weight. Grunting, he struggled to find a good hold on the way-too-large-to-carry-properly stack of paper before he finally settled for dropping it on the floor, making sure to slowly and carefully set it down so it wouldn’t topple over.   
   
“What’s this?” he asked as he flipped through the papers, an eyebrow raised in confusion at what he saw. Each and every page was densely packed with mathematical equations and jargon. At the first top pages, he recognized a few simple processes here and there from his studies on catching back up, but as he moved deeper and deeper into the stack, they grew more and more complex to the point where he wasn’t even sure they were from the same subject.  
   
“That’s every question from the textbook, all answered completely and correctly! I even had to skip grading the homework from the other periods just to make sure it's hers!”  
   
Marco stared at the pile, his jaw beginning to drop. “All of it?” Now that he looked closer, he could definitely tell it was Seraph’s handwriting. Full of rune-like letters and numbers, it was a close match to Hekapoo’s own, though just a bit rougher. “She thought she had to do the entire book for homework? How’d that happen?!”  
   
Miss Skullnick frantically threw her hands in the air. “I don’t know! It was a free day yesterday! I just told the class to work on their assignments from the book, not the whole thing!” She then pawed at her pockets, looking for something. “And that’s not the only thing!” she said, pulling out a beat-up and extremely worn-out textbook, the lettering on its cover heavily faded but still barely visible.  
   
“Wait, is that a physics textbook?” Marco asked, pointing his finger at the object, which looked like it would and had fallen apart once. “What could she have done with that? She doesn’t even have Physics as a class.” He then looked at Miss Skullnick questioningly. “And you teach Physics?”  
   
“I don’t, but the science teacher Mr. Smith does, and he brought me this. Look!” she exclaimed, cracking open the book to a page with a bright new sticky-note. It was chock full of equations in a familiar style of handwriting. “Apparently, this is one of the outdated textbooks he uses to prop up the tables in his classroom, and he caught Seraph writing in it near the end of fifth period Biology yesterday.”  
   
Marco furrowed his brow. “But...then why didn’t I get notified about that? Isn’t that something I need to talk to her about not doing at school?”  
   
“But that’s the thing.” Miss Skullnick flipped to the beginning of the book and the table of contents. Many of the chapters were circled, with a few like Thermodynamics, Kinematics, and Dynamics sticking out the most prominently. “These equations aren’t even taught in high school! Mr. Smith told me he even had to ask several colleagues for help with identifying a few of these equations, and they work on projects like theoretical wormholes or something!”   
   
“Wormholes?” Marco asked, his mind whirring in thought. His eyes widened, then they looked down, a triangular-shaped bulge in one of his pockets calling to them. The shiny glint of metal stared back at him as he made out the shape of his dimensional scissors. He gasped. “Of course!”   
   
“Eh? What are you talking about?” Miss Skullnick asked, confused.  
   
Marco’s face was deep in concentration as he ran his fingers across the pair of blades. “Dimensional scissors. Just using them typically involves a basic understanding of the space-time continuum and multiverse theory.” Turning his head, he looked Miss Skullnick in the eye. “Hekapoo’s the only person in the entire multiverse who knows how to make them, and she’s Seraph’s mom.”  
   
A flash of realization came over her as Miss Skullnick opened her mouth to talk, but before a word could come out, two voices called out from the other end of the hallway.   
   
“MARCO-”  
   
“-DIAZ!”  
   
The two spun around to see the assistant gym coach, Minerva, trying to contain two struggling students in her grip. Marco recognized one immediately as Justin, the captain of the football team, from the day before, but the name of the other one, a girl in running clothes, escaped him.   
   
“Calm down you two!” Minerva yelled, barely able to keep a hold on the back of their shirts.  
   
“We are calm!” Justin said, and he managed to twist his shirt out of the teacher’s hand. He sprinted towards Marco, almost as if he was about to tackle him, but then came to a stop in front of him and fell on his knees, a begging look in his eyes as he clasped his hands together. “Marco, please, you have to let your kid join the football team!”  
   
“Football?”  
   
Behind Justin, the other girl gave out a yell as Minerva, now able to focus on only one rabid student instead of two, wrapped her arms around the girl and lifted her with a grunt. She then walked up next to Justin, the girl in her arms kicking her legs in the air. “Mr. Diaz,” she said, exhausted, “I can’t keep this up for much longer. Can you please help me deal with these two?”  
   
Marco and Miss Skullnick stared at the strange display in front of them, not caffeinated enough to deal with this on top of everything else.   
   
Wriggling herself free of the teacher’s grip, the girl shoved Justin aside. “Marco, my name is Monique, and forget about football, she needs to join my track team! She just broke the school track record last period! I’ve never seen anyone run that fast, not even at the Olympics! Say yes! Please say yes!”  
   
At that moment, Justin got up from the floor and tried to shove Monique out of the way. “Don’t listen to her! With your kid, the Awesome Opossums will be able to dominate the entire season! We can finally get a winning streak over the Warriors!”   
   
As the two quarreling students glared at each other, Marco put his arms between them to separate them. “GUYS!” he yelled forcibly, grabbing their attention as their screaming died down. “How about I talk to Seraph first before you ask me for permission, okay? How does that sound?” Out of the corner of his eye, the large stack of paper standing next to him and the textbook in Miss Skullnick’s hands caught his attention. “I know I need to,” he muttered quietly, barely paying attention to the wide-eyed nods from Justin and Monique.   
   
0000  
   
In a darkly-illuminated office, Mr. Candle gestured to a bowl of candy on his desk. “Go ahead, help yourself if you want.”  
   
“Ooooh, don’t mind if I do!” A hand reached in and grabbed as many as physically possible, the crinkling of plastic wrappers being undone filling the quiet room. Stuffing random pieces of candy into her mouth until her cheeks bulged, the hand’s owner moaned as she chewed the sweet conglomeration.  
   
Mr. Candle raised both of his eyebrows, then shrugged. “Well, looks like you’re good for the rest of lunch.” Clasping his hands together in front of him, he looked at Seraph, who was sitting in front of him with a surprised look on her face as she discovered how well caramel sticks to teeth. “So, how did your first couple of days at school go?”  
   
“Muhnmphff-” Screwing up her eyes, Seraph paused to swallow, then continued to speak even though there were still a few pieces of candy in her mouth. “I mean, school’s been going great, though History's a bit confusing, and I even have a couple of friends already! Janna knows so much about dad, and Brittney even called me a ‘freaky weirdo!“ she said proudly.   
   
Mr. Candle’s face briefly contorted into a frown for a second, then quickly snapped back into a strained smile. “Oh...well, that’s...nice to hear, though how about you let me know if Brittney calls you that again? I might need to talk to her about something in the future.”   
   
“Okay!”   
   
As Seraph nodded cheerfully, he carefully took a sip of his coffee, mentally hoping that Hekapoo would be able to find it within herself to not smite Brittney immediately if she ever caught word of this. The poor girl deserved that bit of kindness at the very least. Setting down his mug, his smile was more earnest this time. “Heard you’ve become quite the school sensation at the football field today. Care to fill me in on the details?”   
   
Swinging her legs under her chair, Seraph picked up a paper clip from Mr. Candle’s desk. “Well, I don’t know what everyone’s so excited about,” she said, inattentively holding up the paper clip to her eye and inspecting it. “Hm, steel.” Picking up a few more, she continued to inspect them as she kept speaking. “I just ran a few laps, that’s all. I’m not even as fast as mom is.”   
   
Mr. Candle hmmed and stayed silent for a few moments, but then spoke up after it became clear that Seraph wouldn’t be done with paper clips any time soon. “So, whatcha doing there?” he asked inquisitively as she tossed them lightly into the air, testing their weight.  
   
Nodding at some unseen instruction, Seraph placed both of her palms together, the paper clips in between, and squeezed tightly. Mr. Candle raised his brow curiously as his face started to warm up, a red glow beginning to shine through Seraph’s fingers and lighting up the look of concentration on her face, the tip of her tongue poking out of the corner of her lips. “Oh, I’m just making something for dad.”  
   
“Huh,” he remarked as he covered his eyes with his fingers and squinted, the glow becoming brighter and yellower in color, “you like to make art?”  
   
Seraph separated her hands slightly, a small ball of molten metal hovering between them. Not moving her hands, she flexed her fingers, commanding the ball to reshape itself into the rough shape of a motorcycle, two protrusions extending from its sides. A few sparks fell onto his desk as the figurine traded its bright glow for a cool reflective grey, revealing the image of a certain dragon-cycle. “Yeah, it’s really fun!” she said, looking at him with a smile. “It reminds me of working with mom in the forge, and Abuelo’s even going to teach me about painting and sculpting this weekend!”  
   
Blinking the spots from his eyes, Mr. Candle peered at the small statue as it floated down onto his desk in front of him. Though he wasn’t an expert in either dragon-cycle physiology or artistry, and some of the proportions were ever so slightly off in several places, it was still impressively detailed for such a small piece of art. “Ah, so a family interest then? They must be pretty proud of you, teaching you about all those different styles.”    
   
Seraph’s eyes widened slightly, blinked, then eased their way down to the dragon-cycle figurine. Picking it up with her hands, she sank back in her chair, bringing it closer to her face. “Yeah,” she said, “I guess they are.”  
   
0000  
   
   
Omake: After School  
   
Two girls stood on the sidewalk, one in a cheerleader outfit, and the other with a green beanie on her head. “If you want to see it, pay up first.”  
   
The cheerleader groaned loudly before taking out a crisp twenty dollar bill and handing it to the other girl. She huffed, showing her displeasure at the action. “I better be getting my money’s worth.”   
   
Tucking the bill into a bulging pocket, Janna took out her cellphone, happy to pull another fast one on Brittney with her patented ‘specialty discounts.’   
   
Brittney studied the picture of Hekapoo, sitting on a couch next to Marco, with a pair of narrow eyes. “She’s kinda okay-looking I guess, though not as pretty as me, obviously.” She sniffed disinterestedly, raising her nose high in the air.  
   
“So, what’d you think?” Janna asked, her hands itching to count her gains for the day.  
   
“Humph, ” Brittney said, whipping her hair behind her. “Can’t you tell? I was already done several minutes ago.”  
   
Janna just shrugged as the cheerleader strutted off with her head held high. Reaching into her pocket, she pulled out a fat stack of bills and licked her finger. “Twenty...forty...sixty-”  
   
“Janna.” Marco’s voice came from behind her, and, as she slowly glanced backwards, so did a disapproving stare.  
   
Unphased, she tied up the stack with a rubber band and turned around, not even bothering to hide it. “Hey Marco,” she said, coyly waving the stack of bills at him with a smirk, “want to help me count this money?”  
   
He stared flatly at her. “...Really?”   
   
Janna shrugged and put the bills back in her pocket. “Eh, got to make a living somehow.”  
   
“By selling personal information? My personal information?” Marco crossed his arms.  
   
Janna held up her hands defensively. “Hey, gotta give the people what they want. Not my fault they want those pictures.” She then placed an arm around Marco, who looked at her hand and then back to her with a distrusting expression. “Besides, you’re like a celebrity now, isn’t that something to be proud of?”  
   
Marco sputtered. “P-proud?!?”  
   
“I know, right?” she said cheerily, almost as if Marco wasn’t burning a hole through her head with his eyes. Janna then shifted her eyes from side to side conspiratorily, as though she was about to tell him a grand secret. “You know, I’m actually quite impressed with you Marco. You spent so long just nodding at Jackie and playing it safe, I was starting to think you’d never be able to put the moves on anyone. But then you actually got it on, with someone other than Jackie no less!”   
   
A wild look appeared in her eyes, one that was starting to make Marco feel like he really should’ve run when he had the chance. “You! Mar! Co! Diaz!” Each word was punctuated with a finger poking into his chest and a way-too-enthusiastic grin, which was already uncomfortable to deal with, but then, she laughed and gave him a half-lidded stare. “The resident safe kid-or, should I say, bad boy. Making girls swoon and me some serious moolah.”   
   
“…” Marco could only stare at her, unsure how or even if he should respond.  
   
Janna slapped him on the back and out of his silence, nearly causing his reflexes to flare up and flip her over his shoulder. “Come on, it’s time to celebrate!” She waved her stack of bills in front of him. “I’m taking you and your daughter out to get something to eat! The school’s paying for it, not me!”   
   
His eye twitched. What did I even get myself into? Marco thought, right before he got dragged away by his hand.  
   
Meanwhile, at the other end of the school, Jackie rested her forehead on the door of her locker, the coolness of the metal helping to ease her mind. After yesterday afternoon, she’d thought that getting back on track with life would’ve become easier, but it was beginning to feel hard for her to feel optimistic after people still kept going quiet and try to hide their stares whenever they saw her.   
   
Ignoring them had been easier to do yesterday by keeping herself occupied with thinking about what she’d talk about with Marco, but now, there was nothing else left to distract herself with. And, as her past experiences with the school rumor mill told her, she wasn’t going to be free of that reaction for a long time. Being popular sure did have its drawbacks sometimes.  
   
Pulling her head away with a deep breath, she reached up for the lock on her door. With a few twists, it became undone and the locker swung open. She made to grab her books inside, but then a voice interrupted her. “Excuse me, are you Jackie Lynn Thomas?”  
   
Jackie internally sighed as she reluctantly turned around, expecting to see another person who wanted to pry into what was going on between Marco and Hekapoo. However, to her surprise, she was greeted by the face of their daughter-thinking about it still made her feel strange inside-looking at her with a wide-eyed expression.  
   
“Uh...yeah,” she said, slowly putting on a confused smile. “Do you need something?”  
   
“Well, earlier today Star told me my dad used to really like you,” Seraph said innocently as Jackie’s smile dropped, “and I wanted to meet you! I figured, if my dad liked you that you must be an amazing person.” She stuck out her hand expectantly to Jackie, who didn’t reciprocate the gesture. “My name’s Seraph Celosia Dia-”  
   
“I know,” Jackie cut her off shortly. “I was there when you came to Earth a few days ago.”   
   
“Oh!” Seraph said excitedly. “Then would you like to be friends with me?”   
   
“Huh?” Jackie blinked, then her expression lightened. Well, that is, it tried to lighten itself as much as possible. “...I guess I can try-”  
   
“Hey Seraph!” Janna called out, dragging a still stunned Marco behind her. “We've got places to go!”  
   
At hearing Janna’s words, Marco snapped himself out of his trance and pulled his wrist out of her grasp. Shaking his hand for a bit, he looked up to see two familiar faces, glad to see them. “Hi Jackie! You've been talking to Seraph?”  
   
Jackie gave him a small smile, though it felt a bit forced for her to do. “Yeah, I have. She’s a...nice kid.”  
   
“We were making friends!” Seraph exclaimed, grabbing Jackie’s hand and bouncing up and down.   
   
Marco’s face brightened in response. “Really? That's nice to hear.”   
   
“We were about to get something to eat,” Janna said as Marco groaned but didn't say anything else, figuring it would be useless to try and correct her. “You wanna come Seraph? My treat.”  
   
Seraph gasped. “I wanna come, I wanna come!” She then looked to Marco expectantly. “Dad, can Jackie come along too?”  
   
“Sure,” Marco said, “the more the merrier.”  
   
“Besides,” Janna stated, “the school’s paying for it, so you can get whatever you want.”  
   
As the group started walking off, Marco turned to Seraph, a questioning look in his eyes. “So Seraph, can you tell me what Hekapoo taught you about math and physics? I think we might be able to skip you a few classes if you can take a few tests for Miss Skullnick.”  
   
“Oh, really? Well, mom said that I didn't really need to learn about fractal topics yet, so she started me off with calculus instead of…”  
   
Meanwhile, as Seraph continued to gush on about her mother, with Marco commenting on how well of a job Hekapoo did every once in a while, no one noticed Jackie lagging behind silently, an uncomfortable feeling rising within her at every mention of her.   
 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Author’s Notes: Hello new readers and old alike. I hope you guys have all been enjoying this story me and my beta have worked hard to make it as good as possible. Lot of stuff is brewing, next arc is what I’m calling the Battle Nexus Tournament. Probably one of the longer arcs I’ve planned and I hope you guys like. Leave a review telling us what you think.  
> Also it seems someone has made a TvTropes page for us, go check it out.   
>    
> Beta Notes: Yeah, I don’t have much else to say other than things will be picking up next chapter, and don’t forget to show your support for this story on our TvTropes page. It could really use some love right now.


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